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Davit) Swing, 



Born, Cincinnati, Ohio, 
August 23, 1830. 

Instructor in Greek and Latin 

at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio, 

1853 to 1866. 

Pastor of Westminster, North Presbyterian, and 

Fourth Presbyterian Churches, 

Chicago, 

1866 to 1875. 

Pastor of the Central Church, 

Chicago, 

1875 to 1894. 

Died, Chicago, October 3, 1894. 



David Swing 



($ (Utemoriaf (gofume. 



TEN SERMONS, 

Selected and Prepared for Publication by Himself ; 



Together with a Biographical Sketch, Tributes Called 
Out by His Death, The Last Sermon He Ever 
Preached, and His Unfinished Sermon; Also, 
A Brief History of the Central Church, 
The Events which Led to Its Organi- 
zation, and the First Sermon 
Preached Before that 
Congregation. 



compiled by his daughter, 

Helen Swing^Stauking 




/ 



~7*~ 



F. TENNYSON NEELY, 



Publisher, 

mdcccxciv. 



Chicago. 
New York. 



\ 






Copyright. 1894. 

BY 

HFXEN SWING STARRING. 



LC Control Numbe: 



tmp96 027673 



2)et>ication, 



In Loving Remembrance of My Father, 

David Swing, 

I Dedicate this Book 

TO 

All who Knew and Loved Him. 



His Daughter, 
Helen. 



Op the Ojste Thousand Copies of this Book 
Issued to Subscribers this is 



No 



^^A 




(Jt^L^^L^^ t^xJ^^ 



co:ntentk. 



Poem — Consider B. Carter, 10 

Preface, 11 

Biographical Sketch — Frank Gilbert, 13 

History of the Central Church — Thomas S. Chard, 23 

Ten Sermons — 

The Simpler and Greater Keligion, 29 

The Modern Christian Faith, 48 

Phillips Brooks, 68 

New Times Make New Men, 88 

Things and Men, 108 

Immorality, 127 

Devotion and Work, 147 

Kadicalism — Boot and Branch, 167 

The Gentleman of the New School — Kutherford B. 

Hayes 185 

Our New Era, 205 

Tributes — 

Poem — Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, 225 

Funeral Sermon — Dr. Barrows, 228 

The Poet Preacher — Sermon by Dr. Emil G. Hirsch, 247 

Sermon — Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus, 278 

Sermon — Dr. Thomas Hall, 304 

Sermon — Dr. H. W. Thomas, 310 

Sermon — Dr. F. A. Noble, 325 

Extract from Sermon — Bishop Fallows, 355 

Extract from Sermon — Bev. H. A. Delano, .... 358 

Extract from Sermon — Bev. J. P. Brushingham, . . 361 

Extract from Sermon — Bev. T. W. Handford, . . . 366 

Resolutions of Fourth Presbyterian Church, . . 368 

Reasons for Withdrawal from Fourth Presbyte- 
rian Church, 370 

Reasons for a Central Church, 373 

Last Sermon Delivered by David Swing, .... 391 

Unfinished Sermon, 412 



Bavib Swina. 



His uoble soul passed with the fading year — 

When all the flowers he loved, with drooping heads, 

Had laid them down to sleep in winter beds, 

The poet fell asleep upon his bier. 

Oh, steadfast friends, with grieving hearts draw near, 

And bear all gently to his dreamless sleep 

The faithful pastor, minister and seer, 

While men of all religions pray and weep. 

Large was his faith and hope — his very name 

A synonym for pure and noble deeds; 

The passion of his theme a kindling flame, 

His Christian spirit greater than all creeds — 

Thus, loving men of every elime and name, 

He fell asleep in death and rose to fame. 

Consider B. Carter. 



preface. 

The great Chicago fire of 3871 destroyed 
every sermon which David Swing had written up 
to that date. He always insisted that he was glad 
to have them put forever beyond the reach of 
publication. To his thinking, a sermon was 
manna for a day, or, at least, a sermon might be 
excellent in itself, yet unsuited for publication in 
book form. For a long time he positively refused 
to have his sermons published in book form 
except as essays; but, fortunately, in the spring of 
'94, he consented to prepare a volume of sermons 
for publication. Those sermons, ten in number, 
form the main feature of the volume herewith 
presented to the public. As Moses gave many 
laws and precepts, but put upon a plane apart 
from all others the Ten Commandments, so these 
ten sermons stand quite apart from all the rest. 
They were selected from many hundreds which 
had been published entire in newspapers. The 
original intention was to publish these sermons 
alone; but the death of the great preacher has 
made desirable a few additions: a brief sketch of 



12 

his life, a short history of the Central Church, 
the last sermon which the great preacher deliv- 
ered, the one which he was writing when the 
Angel of Death bade him shake from his wings 
the dust of his body, his farewell to the Fourth 
Presbyterian Church of Chicago, his first address 
to the Central Church, and selections from the 
tributes paid to his worth and genius by his fellow 
clergymen of Chicago. With the exception of 
these added features, and the portrait, this volume 
is precisely as it was prepared by Professor Swing 
himself. 



aBioorapbicat Sfcetcb. 

3Bg tfranfe <3tlbert. 

David Swing was of German ancestry, but, 
by a long line of descent, an American. The 
first of the name sought and found personal lib- 
erty on this side of the Atlantic before the name 
of the United States had ever been spoken. The 
best characteristics of the land of Goethe and 
Kant, blended with those of the land of Franklin 
and Emerson, found pre-eminent embodiment in 
the great preacher, whose prose was poetry, 
whose reflections were philosophy, and whose 
teachings were philosophy and religion applied 
to the conduct of life. 

David Swing was born in Cincinnati, August 
23, 1830. The father, whose baptismal name 
he bore, was in the steamboat business on the 
Ohio River, then one of the great highways of 
the nation. 

The senior David Swing fell a victim to the 
cholera of 183*2. This proved a turning point in 
the life of his son. Instead of spending his boy- 
hood in what was then the metropolis of the 



14 

West, lie was destined to nourish a youth sub- 
lime in the comparative solitude of a farm in a 
thoroughly rural district; for, when he was live 
years old, his mother married again and became 
a farmer's wife. This was the only notable 
change in the general atmosphere of his boyhood. 
The father, although a truly Christian citizen, was 
not a member of any church, while the stepfather 
was of the strictest sect, a Presbyterian. 

There was nothing in the boy life of the great 
preacher which was especially noteworthy. He 
attended the public schools of his neighborhood, 
acquiring the rudiments of education, and show- 
ing no unusual taste for reading. It was not 
until he was fourteen years of age that the 
flower of his genius began to blossom. The 
State of Ohio was dotted over with small col- 
leges, the policy of the early settlers being to 
distribute institutions of higher learning, instead 
of attempting to build up a great university. 
Still more numerous were the academies. As a 
consequence of that policy, almost any lad of that 
period and State, who was really eager for knowl- 
edge, could acquire a liberal education. The 
remarkably lone: roll of Ohioans who have risen 



15 

to distinction attests the wisdom of that policy. 
It is Miami University, at Oxford, which can 
claim David Swing as one of its graduates, Pres- 
ident Harrison being a classmate. From college 
he went direct to the city of his birth, and, under 
the especial theological guidance of Dr. N. L. 
Rice, then one of the most eminent preachers and 
theologians of the more conservative branch 
of the Presbyterian Church, he studied for the 
ministry; but his thoughts turned to his col- 
lege home. The life at Oxford, w T ith its oppor- 
tunities for enjoying the society of the high 
thinkers who made Greek and Latin literature 
so rich, and, to David Swing, so delightful, had 
special attraction for him. For twelve years he 
was instructor of Greek and Latin at Miami Uni- 
versity, preaching in the meanwhile in some 
neighboring church. Those were the great years 
of his preparation for what was to prove his life- 
work. He settled to his duties at Oxford, expect- 
ing to remain there permanently. He had gone 
there a farmer lad, a stranger, and alone. He 
married Elizabeth Porter, daughter of the leading 
physician of the town, and it was there that his 
two daughters who survive him were born. Mrs. 



16 

Swing, it may be added in this connection, died 
August 2, 1879. The husband never married 
again. During those years at Oxford he enjoyed 
an enviable reputation as a preacher, but, when 
called to Chicago to accept a pastorate, he declined 
it, distrusting his ability to permanently interest a 
city audience. He had no conception of his own 
genius. But, finally, after repeated urgings, he 
accepted the pastorate of the Westminster Pres- 
byterian Church of Chicago, and left the home 
of his youth and early manhood. 

The success of David Swing was marked from 
the first. He always retained the title of Pro- 
fessor, a fit recognition of his classic culture. 
Soon after his removal to Chicago came the 
union of the old and new school branches of 
the Presbyterian Church. Out of the incidents of 
that union came the consolidation of the West- 
minster with the North Presbyterian Church, 
under the new name of the Fourth Presbyterian 
Church, Professor Swing being the pastor of the 
two made one. 

The great Chicago fire of October 9, 1871, 
destroyed the Fourth Church edifice and all the 
homes of all the parish, including the pastor's. 



17 

In common with nearly the entire NQrth Divis- 
ion of Chicago, the Swing family were obliged 
to flee for their lives, taking almost nothing with 
them. Professor Swing was accustomed to say that 
there was one comforting reflection, his old ser- 
mons were burnt up and could never tempt him to 
draw on his barrel instead of his brain. As an 
illustration of his genial wit and unfailing hope- 
fulness, I give the following extract from a letter: 

u On Monday morning of the big fire of '71 
I overtook Professor Swing, his wife and two 
daughters, going up Clark Street ahead of the 
fire, and took him to my room in the school on 
Xorth Halsted Street. Professor Swing had the 
baby's hand in his left, and with his right hand 
pulled the child's express wagon with a few pieces 
of table silver. 'Hello! Donald,' he said, 'these 
are all I have left. Gold' (pointing to his wife 
and children), l silver and hope.' This hope never 
left David Swing, for the last words he ever wrote 
were : ' We must all hope much from the gradual 
progress of brotherly love.' " 

At that time the most available audience room 
not in regular use upon the Sabbath w^as Standard 
Hall, in what was then the best residence portion 



18 

-of the South Division, and there Professor Swing 
resumed his preaching. Many of his flock gath- 
ered about him, and others, who had never 
attended his services, were attracted by his depth 
of thought, beauty of diction, and unique elo- 
quence. Soon the Standard was too small to hold 
"the audience, and when McVicker's Theater was 
rebuilt — and it was one of the first large structures 
in the burnt district — Professor Swing preached 
there regularly every Sunday morning. Here also 
the house was too small to hold the people who 
wished to hear him. During that brief period 
between the destruction and reconstruction of the 
Fourth Church, rebuilt, as it was, on its old site, 
David Swing gained general recognition through- 
out the three divisions of Chicago as a pulpit 
genius, and began to be recognized throughout 
the country at large. 

Putting aside all inducements to continue his 
services in the center of the city beyond the time 
necessary for his old parish to restore itself after 
the dispersion of that night of burning, Professor 
Swing resumed the regular pastorate as soon as 
practicable. Everything was moving smoothly, 
^iintil April 13, 1874, when Professor Francis L. 



19 

Patton, of the McCorniick Theological Seminary, 
and subsequently President of Princeton Univer- 
sity, arraigned him for heresy. It is unnecessary 
to dwell upon that trial. No man was ever less 
inclined to spend his strength in controversy than 
David Swing. It was abhorrent to his whole 
nature. But, being forced to defend himself, he 
did it in a masterly manner, and was acquitted. 
His church, and the community generally, rejoiced 
exceedingly that the modern Daniel had come out 
of the lion's den unharmed. But Professor Pat- 
ton had no thought of stopping. The case could 
be appealed to the Synod, and from the Synod to 
the General Assembly, and then, perhaps, be 
remanded to the Presbytery, the court of original 
jurisdiction, for a second trial, with a second 
series of appeals. The prospect of wasting so 
much of his life in the mere defense of his per- 
sonal orthodoxy was so unbearable that David 
Swing quietly severed his connection with the 
Fourth Church and the Presbyterian denomina- 
tion. There were no sensational features. His 
withdrawal was devoid of everything, so far as 
possible, that would savor of notoriety. But so 
large a place had Professor Swing already come to 



20 

occupy in the religious world, that his loss to the 
Presbyterian ministry occasioned a great deal of 
public discussion and contributed perceptibly to 
the liberal tendency of the period. 

There eagerly rallied around Professor Swing 
at this period of his life a large constituency, 
drawn from all parts of the city, rejoicing in the 
opportunity of resuming, on a more suitable basis, 
the down-town services begun in McVicker's The- 
ater. Central Music Hall was built for that pur- 
pose, and there, until his death, the beloved 
pastor of Central Church continued to discuss 
the high themes of religion and ethics. There, 
also, at stated intervals, the pastor administered 
the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, to which all 
were bidden who were in sympathy with the 
service. The customary mid-week evening serv- 
ice was maintained in Apollo Hall, the small 
upper chamber of Central Music Hall. 

The Central Church organized and sustained 
for many years a Mission School — Sabbath and 
Industrial — in the northwestern part of the city, 
besides taking a large part in the general chari- 
table and humane work of Chicago. Personally, 
Professor Swing was specially interested in the 



21 

work of the Humane Society, to the efficiency of 
which he very largely contributed. 

With the opening of the pulpit year of 1879, 
Professor Swing began his largest pastorate. From 
that time until his death, his sermons were regu- 
larly published each Monday morning precisely as 
delivered. For fourteen years he occupied that 
press pulpit. There was not a State or a Terri- 
tory where his voice was not heard. Even Alaska 
contributed to that vast audience. Nor was that 
all. Many newspapers throughout the country 
frequently made liberal extracts from those 
sermons. Thus the power and influence of David 
Swing became a distinct and important factor 
in the higher life of a multitude which no 
man could number. When, at last, with only a 
few days' warning, the end came, not only did 
Chicago mourn the truly irreparable loss, but 
that larger congregation shared keenly in the 
sorrow. 

Without lingering by the deathbed of this 
second Erasmus, nor yet trenching at all 
upon the ground so well covered by the tributes 
herewith published, this sketch can not better 
*close than by reproducing the poem written by 



22 

David Swing in memory of Garfield, and the 

tribute verse from the pen of Frances Cole : 

Now all ye flowers make room, 
Hither we come in gloom, 
To make a mighty tomb, 

Sighing and weeping. 
Grand was the life he led, 
Wise was each word he said; 
But with the noble dead 

We leave him sleeping. 

Soft may his body rest, 
As on his mother's breast, 
Whose love stands all confessed, 

Mid blinding tears. 
But may his soul so white, 
Rise in triumphant flight, 
And in God's land of light 

Spend endless years. — David Swing. 



When some beloved guest takes scrip and staff 
For further journeying, or our heart's son, 
Conscious of pleasant days of childhood done, 
Girds up the loins of manhood with a laugh 
And goes forth full of courage; then we pace 
A little way with each the upward slope 
Till the hill's brow hides him, and we trace 
Our way alone back to our lonely place. 
So now, benignant teacher ! that the cloud 
Hath hid thee closely from our straining eyes, 
This planet's air grows chill; our hearts are bowed 
With sense of evening shadows in the skies; 
In unknown tongues the page of life seems writ, — 
Our friend is gone who should interpret it. 

— Frances Cole. 



Ibietor? of tbe Central Cburcb. 

:©£ Gbomas 5. CbarD. 

[This paper was read to Ihe Central Church on the first Sunday 
after the funeral of the beloved pastor, together with the unfin- 
ished sermon, which is also given in this volume.] 

. In the year 1866, Professor David Swing, then 
hardly known beyond the confines of his own 
native State, was called from the Miami Univer- 
sity, of Oxford, Ohio, to the pastorate of the 
Westminster Presbyterian Church of Chicago,, 
which then occupied a small wooden structure in 
the North Division of the city. Accepting the 
call, Professor Swing began his pastoral work, 
and, by the breadth and originality of his views 
and the beauty of his literary style, soon drew a 
large following of those who loved liberal 
thought, when held in balance by spirituality 
and reason. In those far-away years his bril- 
liancy of mind was astonishing. One expression 
I recall, among the many like thoughts which 

23 



24 

adorned his discourses: "How precious in God's 
sight must be this star, for out of its very dust 
he made a man." Search where we will in lit- 
erature, such gems are found elsewhere only in 
Shakespeare, and they were sown thick in every 
sermon he delivered. The congregation soon 
grew too large for its small building, and 
united, under Professor Swing, with the North 
Church, occupying the more commodious edifice. 
The great fire of 1871 swept away this church, 
w ith all others in that part of the city, and scat- 
tered the homeless congregation. It reassembled 
at Standard Hall, and, later, re-enforced by a mul- 
titude of persons of all shades of religious belief, 
bound together by a common love for their leader, 
met for a while in McVicker's Theater. On the 
completion of the present Fourth Presbyterian 
Church, Professor Swing occupied its pulpit as 
pastor. Here, as elsewhere, David Swing was a 
lover, follower, and teacher of the truth as God 
gave him to see it. With that happy commin- 
gling of profound philosophy, delicate poetic 
sentiment and large humanity, enlivened by a 
wit which left no bitterness, he charmed and con- 
vinced men, and held within the influence of the 



25 

church many of our ablest thinkers, who, hut for 
him, would not have enjoyed the gentle ministra- 
tions of the sanctuaiy. 

Of the heresy trial I need hardly speak. It 
removed David Swing from the Presbyterian 
Church and gave him to humanity. 

In November, 1875, Professor David Swing, 
enjoying the confidence and affectionate regard of 
the Chicago Presbytery, and beloved by his own 
congregation, resigned his pastorate of the Fourth 
Church. Immediate arrangements were made to 
organize a new church society, with Professor 
Swing as pastor. An agreement was executed as 
follows : 

"We, the undersigned, believing it to be de- 
sirable that David Swing shall remain in the city 
of Chicago and continue his public teachings in 
some central and commodious place, and having 
been informed that the annual expense of such 
arrangement can be brought within the sum of 
$15,000, including an acceptable salary to Pro- 
fessor Swing, do hereby severally agree to pay the 
deficit, if any there shall be, arising from the 
conduct of such services, to the amount above 
named, for the term of two years." 



26 

To this agreement fifty names were signed r 
each subscribing $1,000. These names are as 
follows: 



J. D. Webster, 
N. K. Fairbank, 
John S. Hunter, 
William Bross, 
W. W. Kimball, 
Samuel Bliss, 
C. I. Peck, 
H. A. Johnson, 
E. L. Sheldon, 
C. A. Spring, Jr., 
W. S. Henderson, 
A. T. Hall, 
G. B. Carpenter, 
Perry H. Smith, 
J. G. Shortall, 
Robert Harris, 
Eugene S. Pike, 



Leonard Swett, 
Franklin Mac- 

Veagh, 
Walter L. Peck, 
O. F. Fuller, 
A. L. Chetlain, 
A. T. Andrews, 
H. I. Sheldon, 
V. C. Turner, 
Frank M. Blair, 
O. W. Potter, 
P. C. Maynard, 

Tfl. E. DOGGETT, 

C. B. Holmes, 
Chas. H. Lane, 
Enos Johnson, 
Jos. Medill, 



Wirt Dexter, 
Alfred Cowles, 
A. M. Pence, 
A. N. Kellogg, 

R. N. ISHAM, 

Ferd. W. Peck, 
J. H. McVicker, 
John B. Drake, 
W. R. Page, 
Henry Potwin, 
Edmund Burke, 
F. M. Corby, 
J. V. LeMoyne, 
Murry Nelson, 
George Sturges, 
H. M. Wilmarth, 

J. C. DUNLEVY. 



The guarantors of this fund were not called 
upon, as seats were rented for a sum amounting 
to about $15,000 annually. 

The creed adopted by the church was short, 
simple and evangelical. Without raising nice 
metaphysical distinctions, it dealt mainly with 
the practical side of Christian life. 



27 

From McVicker's Theater, where the society 
was first called together, the congregation re- 
moved to Central Music Hall, January 1, 1880, 
and has continued to occupy this hall until the 
present day. 

The history and noble work of Central Church 
since that time are well known. Its Sunday ser- 
mons have been read each week, from the Pacific 
to the Atlantic Ocean, in numberless Christian 
homes, and they have most powerfully contributed 
to mold, sweeten, liberalize and elevate the relig- 
ious thought of the day. 

David Swing died Wednesday evening, Octo- 
ber 3, and his funeral services were held in Cen- 
tral Music Hall on the following Sunday. Here, 
where his eloquence so often inspired your nobler 
thoughts, you covered that which was mortal with 
the flowers he had loved so well, and gave to him 
the tribute of your tears. He has left you, as a 
father leaves his children — not forever, for "be- 
yond the smiling and the weeping" we shall meet 
him again. 

He once repeated some beautiful lines, with 
that tenderness of feeling which so characterized 
him, and you may wish to listen to them now: 



28 



Life! we've been long together 
Through pleasant and through cloudy weather; 
'Tis hard to part when friends are dear; 
Perhaps 'twill cost a sigh — a tear; § 

Then steal away, give little warning; 
Choose thine own time; 
Say not "Good night," but in some brighter clime 

Bid me " Good morning." 



XLcn Sermons 



Zbc Simpler anfc (Breater IReliGton. 

I fear lest your minds be corrupted from the simplicity and 
purity that is toward Christ. II Corinthians, xi. 3. 

Many who live and think in our age are long- 
ing for a simpler religion. This desire is heard 
in sermons, in common conversation, and is seen 
in the volumes and essays of public men. It 
may well be a matter of wonder what is meant 
by a simpler religion. It may be these longing 
minds are thinking of a more rational Christianity 
— a form in which reason is more visible than 
miracle. It may be they are thinking of a life as 
distinguished from a belief. It would seem a 
good time for making a morning study out of this 
oft recurring public desire. If we are at some 
time to have a simpler form of Christianity, or are 
to work for such a result, we ought to map out 
our wish and study it, that we may know when 
it is gratified. Perhaps such a religion has 
already come. We have all heard of the "simplic- 
ity of Christ." What is it? What was it? Will it 
have any merit and beauty when it shall appear ? 

Events are defining for us this new term. 
Each year is pointing out to us that the past 



30 

Christianity was too complex. It was easily put 
out of working order. Often machines are made 
which involve so many movements, so many 
changes of the direction of power, that it is almost 
impossible for the instrument to do a continuous 
work for a single day. 

Genius has labored long to make a type-setting 
machine, but the task to be done has been so com- 
plex, so full of motions and choices, that the wish 
of the publishing men has not yet been fully grat- 
ified. It was for a long time difficult to make a 
good watch which, besides keeping time perfectly, 
should strike the hour and minute and should 
continue to work only in one hour until another 
hour had come. Theoldtall eight -day clock had less 
difficulty in finding its field of service. A pendu- 
lum, a couple of weights, and a few wheels, and all 
was ready for a performance of duty for a hun- 
dred years without any stop for repairs. 

In the material pursuits of man it is often nec- 
essary to have complex machines, the demand 
being imperative, but in his spiritual kingdom 
there is no such inexorable demand. Complex - 
ness is never unavoidable. Indeed it is purely 
gratuitous. There is no more demand for a com- 



31 

plex religion than there was for the literary style 
of the poet Browning. It would have been quite 
an increase of fame and fortune to that talented 
man had he possessed a style as clear as that of 
Shakespeare or Lord Byron. He had noble pur- 
poses and great power, but his words always 
became entangled like a skein of fine silk. 

His thoughts were indeed silk, but it was dif- 
ficult to pull quickly out of the tangle a long 
needleful of good thread. The greatest of all 
thoughts can be best expressed in the utmost 
simplicity, because the idea, like a mountain, must 
stand forth all alone that it may be the better 
seen. But when a mountain is mingled with a 
long group and is modified by foothills which 
reach away in all directions for a half hundred 
miles, there is the most sublime Alp or Apennine 
injured by a complexity. Christianity is much 
like an author or a piece of art: it can rise up in 
its own grandeur and express its divineness, or it 
can be almost hidden and ruined by surroundings 
in which there are no traces of greatness. 

When Pascal lived and created such a sensa- 
tion in the Romish Church of the seventeenth 
century, his power lay in his ability to raise a 



32 

laugh over the obscure metaphysical inquiries so 
dear to that period. Born a geometer and a 
mathematician, his reason could strip all ideas of 
their false side, and could detect instantly a piece 
of bad logic. He loved to ridicule the absurdities 
of the middle ages and to plead for the simple 
gospel of the first four centuries. His influence 
came chiefly from his power to lift up a great idea 
until by its altitude it made all other ideas con- 
temptible. He turned the morals of the Jesuits 
into contempt and the name of God into sub- 
limity. 

One of the last lessons learned by mankind is 
this: that simplicity may be power; that it is 
nearly always the most powerful element in 
thought and art. The most intricate and sense- 
less of all philosophies are those of the earliest 
and most ignorant races. The religions of India 
are unreadable in our age. No modern mind 
could find the courage to work its way through such 
wonderful admixtures of fact and invention. 
Many of the absurd inquiries which attracted the 
school men and held them captive up to the 
sixteenth century came into Christianity from the 
old East. Nearly all of those questions about the 



33 

Bize of a spirit, about its ability to travel fast 
from star to star, its ability to dance on a needle's 
point came into the Christian period from the 
heathen world which had nourished long before 
the birth of Christ. All semi -barbarian races 
have loved a pomposity of speech and style. As 
some of the African women in the interior of 
the Dark Continent wear 100 pounds of iron rings 
on arms and ankles, assuming that, if a ring be 
an ornament, then, the more rings, the more 
beautiful the girl who wears them, so, in the old 
theologies, the more abundant the notions, the 
richer the creed. So rich was the Hindoo phil- 
osophy at last that it would have filled volumes, 
had the conglomeration ever been fully expressed 
in writing. 

This fondness for entanglement we see in its 
better days in the Apocalypse of Saint John. 
There is no doubt John was one of the most 
beautiful characters of all who have lived, but 
this moral beauty did not save him from being 
led away by the prevailing charm of excessive 
figure and of wide labyrinths of thought. In the 
first chapter of his gospel he exults in the enigma 
of the Word; and in the Revelation he hands his 



34 

mind and soul over to the cause of a bottomless 
mystery, and no doubt drank in much sweetness 
from thoughts which are bitterness to this cen- 
tury. John had in his heart some great poem to 
be inscribed to Christ, the church and heaven, but 
the past ages had shaped for him his form of 
expression, and the result was a poem which, 
instead of standing sublime and simple, like the 
words of Jesus, lies before the modern world like 
the wreck of some royal galleon, all marked from 
sails to anchor with the splendors of the kings of 
Spain. Over such an ornamental ship the ocean 
sighs and the suns of summer shine, but the 
beautiful boat will never sail the sea. So the 
Apocalypse is a gorgeous barge that will never 
be under full sail again. 

Should any one, curious over the past and fond 
of comparisons, wish to compare the Jesus and 
the disciple he loved, he wHll find much of that 
difference contained in the mental simplicity of 
the Master. With Jesus, the greater the truth,the 
simpler its expression. As his ideas grew in vast- 
ness,they diminished in number. As our earth 
has many little lakes but only a few oceans, 
because there is no room for many, so Christ 



35 

offered only a few truths, because each truth had 
to be thousands of miles in length and breadth. 
What Christ said is as clear, as rich, as divine 
to-day as it was eighteen hundred years ago, 
whereas much which John wrote is now as faded 
as the flowers which bloomed around him at Pat- 
mos. We see in those two faces the Master and 
the gentle disciple. John was all the more be- 
loved because he was only the companion planet 
of the naming sun. The central sun did not need 
help; it needed only a companion in the realms of 
space. St. John was this companion, and Christ 
and he will journey onward forever, hand in 
hand, the greater and the less. 

The many shades of Christianity having 
reached this period of reason are compelled to 
halt for a time. All these modern churches have 
come through many a tribulation, but, above all, 
they have come through one long jungle which 
had thickened ever since the times of the old 
Aryan tongues. They all halt now because our 
period asks them what all their enigmas are 
worth ? The age does not seek the money value 
but the moral value of their stuffs. A priest in a 
large city is having hymns printed in English, to 



36 

be sung by all his congregation, as hymns are 
sung here, for, he says, if the English language 
can speak our wisdom, our wit, our love, our 
friendship, can it not utter the emotions of our 
religion ? What a sad blunder of society if Car- 
dinal Newman can compose such a hymn as 
"Lead, Kindly Light, 1 ' and then must have a 
little choir sing some Latin words for his congre- 
gation, whose hearts and tears are, in his English, 
living thoughts ! Often highly educated persons 
are able to lend their soul to two or three differ- 
ent tongues; but, with the millions on millions of 
people, there is only one language in and around 
their spirit. It is the arms, the feet, wings, and 
senses of their mind. In it is light; out of it all 
is midnight. In that one language the people 
live and move and have their being. Coming up 
to the English tongue the church must throw 
away its Latin, and talk and sing and pray along 
with the living heart. 

We must throw aside childish affectations and 
live real lives in a real world. When a Christian 
church crosses the line and enters Germany it 
must use the language of Goethe and Schiller; 
in France it must use the language of Paris; in 



37 

America it must use the language of Webster and 
Clay. To use the Latin tongue is only an affec- 
tation like that of many of our youth who love 
nothing unless it lies over the sea. What a 
wretched blunder had Schiller attempted to write 
in French, and Ernest Kenan attempted to com- 
pose his books in German ! Dante began his poem 
in the Latin tongue, but it was too dead a speech 
for the living Florence. Thus the Latin of the 
church is only a colossal act in the long history 
of affectation. 

But what the Romanists are guilty of in lan- 
guage the Protestants have been guilty of in their 
relations to doctrine, for they are attempting to 
carry onward a bundle of ideas which are fully as 
dead as the kings who built the Pyramids. Even 
were they not dead, they are only expressions 
which pleased generations which are no longer 
here. There is no public here which cares to dis- 
cuss the natural inability of the sinner, or the 
totalness of an infant's guilt, or the inability of a 
saint to lose his piety, or the worthlessness of 
morality, or the efforts of Christ in behalf of a 
few, or that a general and endless punishment 
of mankind is for the glory of God. There must 



38 

be a half hundred of ideas which once possessed 
the power to thrill the public heart, but which 
now lie dead and friendless. The fashion of this 
world passeth away. The love of doctrine has 
declined. 

There used to be recognized several kinds of 
faith. There was a faith in miracles, a faith in 
the divinity of Christ, a faith which even devils 
might cherish, and last and best of all came a 
saving faith. This kind would come only by the 
intervention of miraculous power. What kind of 
faith an inquiring soul might have found or might 
find was exceedingly uu certain. The soul might 
be mistaken and be like the men, who, in digging 
a well on their farms, have come upon iron pyrites 
and have held a feast and invited in all the neigh- 
bors to rejoice with them over the discovery of a 
fabulous vein of gold. It is within living mem- 
ory that many a young person has longed to have 
a saving faith, but has been uncertain whether 
what he had was the purest of gold or only the 
cheap sulphide of iron. All these old shadings 
of faith have melted into one — a faith in Jesus 
Christ as man's beloved friend. If we had asked 
the poet Cowper whether he had faith in his 



39 

mother, and whether it was a faith in miracles 
or in testimony, or a faith which a devil might 
possess, he would have scorned all our theolog- 
ical chemistry and have said: "I shall love my 
mother forever." Behold in Cowper's reply the 
coming simplicity of Christianity! It will rear 
at last a sentiment which will make earth beauti- 
ful and heaven near. 

The old theologies were a kind of exhaustive 
chemical analysis of man as a religious creature; 
they were a physiology of the religious nerves 
and tissues, a microscopic study of the cellular 
structure as affected by the religious emotions. 
Among its conclusions one will find the deduc- 
tion that if a babe should die unbaptized it 
would be punished in perdition forever by a God 
of infinite love. Many centuries were thus dom- 
inated by a scientific Christianity. Repentance 
was analyzed and quite an assortment of repent- 
ances were found. There was a repentance with- 
out sorrow and one with sorrow; one without 
reform and one with reform; and then came the 
chase after that kind which itself needed to be 
repented of; and then came the search for that 
sin over which repentance was utterly useless. 



40 

Equipped with such a scientific religion, the many 
churches did their work for many centuries. 
Under it wars, murders, persecutions and tor- 
tures were most common. The spirit of Christ 
had little to do with the case, because that spirit 
was not an easy victim to such a theological lab- 
oratory. When our vivisectionists cut to pieces 
a living dog or a living horse, they report on the 
creature's bones and sinews; they never report 
on the animal's friendship for man. 

The vivisectionist sustains no relations to 
mercy or goodness or justice; his world is made 
up of weights and measures and times, causes 
and effects. In Africa, a negro chief, having 
been presented with a rifle by Captain Speke, 
and seeing no bird or animal upon which to try 
the instrument, fired at a slave who was at work 
in a field. The chief went to his palace proud 
of his gun. What a marvelous combination of 
lock, stock and barrel ! How bright the iron and 
steel! how polished and how carved the wood! 
As for the slave, he lay dying in agony . Such 
is the science of vivisection — a science of knives 
and saws, with the human soul and the animal 
soul left out. It is the African rifle, with the 
dying slave omitted. 



41 

Thus lias theology been too scientific. A year 
or two ago a railway car was thrown over, and a 
priest who was not hurt in the least, but who was 
compelled to wade out of deep water and mud, 
came up the bank swearing in an anger and with 
oaths which consigned to future pain all the rail- 
way men who had ever lived in any land. And 
yet the theology of that priest was a most com- 
plete science of salvation. It contained all the 
dogmas of the church as discovered between St. 
Augustine and Cardinal Richelieu. Nothing was 
absent from the theology except religion. 

From this elaborate science our age desires to 
break away and to enjoy more of religion itself. 
We all perceive that the millions of people do 
not need the theories of Dr. Briggs or of those 
who opposed that theologian— they need a great, 
deep friendship with the man of Galilee, who 
held in his soul all that is great in human prac- 
tice or belief. Having had eighteen centuries of 
analysis of religion, how ready the world is for a 
taste of the good analyzed so long! Newman 
and Fenelon possessed it; so Calvin and John 
Knox carried it in their hearts; Paul and Apollos 
were full of it when the world was young; it 



42 

sprang up in the soul of John Wesley and came 
to Whitefield; it inflamed the bosom of Mine. 
Guion, and away it went to live with the mission- 
aries who traversed these snows in winters long 
since melted into summers, which also are gone. 
But if minds so scattered through two thousand 
years met in one Christianity, then there must be 
a religion which lies apart from the hundreds of 
doctrines and which cares for none of them any 
more than the sea cares for the artists who sit on 
the sand and attempt to paint its picture. We 
can imagine the ocean saying to the artist: "Are 
you trying to make a picture of me ? Me ! Why, 
I am ten thousand miles wide, and am not even 
in your sight! Paint me! W T hy, I am not here 
for you to paint. I am washing the shores of 
England, America, Spain and France !" 

To John Calvin we can imagine Christianity 
saying: " What! are you delineating me? How 
can you paint me when I am not in Geneva 
alone? I was with Magdalen when she prayed; 
I was with Joseph who asked to furnish the tomb 
for my crucified Christ; I was with the mother of 
Augustine more years than I was with Augustine 
himself; I was with all the little children whom 



43 

Christ held in his arms; I was with John when 
he was preaching in the wilderness; I was with 
the five thousand once and gave them all the 
bread of two worlds; I was with the disciples 
when they sang a hymn, and I was with all the 
martyrs when they died. Oh, thou citizen of 
Geneva, thou canst not express me in articles, 
for I am measureless ; I am not a science of plants 
— not a botany. I am the blossoms themselves — 
the color and the perfume! " 

The Christian religion often seems like that 
vast structure in Rome to which many architects 
carried their deepest and most serious genius. 
Bramante came first. He died, and the great 
Raphael took his place among the arches and 
columns. The grave soon called Raphael. Then 
came Perruzi to stay by the stones for a half of a 
life-time. Angelo then came and gave the great 
sanctuary twenty -two of his precious circles of 
the sun. Genius followed genius for one hun- 
dred and twenty years. 

In that long procession of Italian summer 
times these great architects hated each other and 
quarreled, each with his neighbor. Castelar says 
that Bramante and Angelo, separated by the things 



44 

of earth, are now united in immortality. While 
the builders were often enemies, the temple grew 
in its grandeur, because its arches and columns 
and dome could take no part in the quarrels of 
daily human life. The great basilica arose each 
year toward the sky, and each year left fur- 
ther below, down among the marble chips, the 
many quarrels of the workmen. It absorbed 
from the architects their love and their genius, 
and left all else behind. Thus Christianity can 
make use of the hearts and powers of genius, 
but it remands back to oblivion all the discords 
of fretful minds. It can extract something from 
a Cardinal Newman, something from John Wes- 
ley, something from each cathedral and each 
little chapel in town or field, but in its vast life 
which is to follow the human race forever it will 
work its way up toward its God long after we 
shall have gone away from our quarrelings among 
the useless chips around the base. It will rise a 
single shaft, sublime but simple. 

Christ was so essentially a life that His relig- 
ion must follow closely the plan of its Founder. 
There are many intellectual inquiries upon which 
ihe church does not know what was or would 



4a 

have been the Nazarene's opinion, but the life of 
Christ admits of no doubt. The demand of the 
whole earth is expressed in a few words — a life 
like that of Jesus. With such a piety before 
man and in man, his present and his eternity will 
be one wide field of blessedness. 

It must be remembered that a simple Chris- 
tianity does not mean an unadorned religion. 
Mount Blanc is simple, but it is wondrously 
adorned. Coleridge saw it rising majestically 
"forth from a sea of pines; " he saw on its sides 
a motionless torrents" and "silent cataracts; 11 
he saw "flowers skirting the edge of eternal 
frost; 7 ' he heard there "a thousand voices prais- 
ing God." Rising up thus in all the matchless 
beauty which eternal winter could heap upon its 
summit and which eternal spring could weave 
around its base, yet is that gigantic pile impress- 
ive in its central simplicity. It holds no enig- 
mas. It appeals to all the human family and 
speaks in a language all minds can interpret. 
So, by a simple Christianity one must not mean a 
desert. Around a simple creed may be grouped 
the rich details so much loved by the human 
heart. 



46 

In the simple religion there is a greatness 
which only the greatest nmsic and eloquence can 
express. The grander the doctrines of the church, 
the more impressive may be the beauty which 
they may wear. It was often the misfortune of 
Europe that it had to place a royal crown upon 
the forehead of some young idiotic king, or of a 
royal leader in only the infernal realm of vice. 
Happy Europe could it have placed its crown 
jewels upon only those foreheads which were 
broad with wisdom and power and white in 
purity ! 

Thus has the church often attempted to attach 
its gorgeous service to a little and false thought. 
It has waved its silken banners at the burning of 
a heretic, or has compelled its organ and choir to 
chant a "Te Deum" over fields soaked with in- 
nocent blood. When a simple greatness shall 
come into the creed, then can a new beauty come 
into the service of God's house; for, since all the 
arts are only so many languages of the soul, they 
will rise in impressiveness when at last the soul 
shall have great truths to follow and express. 

Man does not live in a desert. It pleased the 
^Creator to make wondrously beautiful the world 



47 

of His children. All that these children make 
and have shall catch something of ornament 
from the very planet on which they dwell. 

When Christianity shall teach its simplest 
forms of doctrine, it will still be in the world of 
music and color, and all sweet and rich beauty. 
It will ask ten thousand voices to join in its 
song; it may ask all instruments to accompany 
the multitude in their hymn ; it may invite more 
flowers to its altars, and then to the material 
emblems of what the heart loves the simplified 
church will add a pulpit which can have no 
themes but great ones, and which can easily find 
that eloquence which, as aroma lies hidden in 
sandalwood, lies high and deep in the being of 
God, in the life and deeds of Christ's, in the rela- 
tion of man to man, and in the mysterious flow 
of our race toward death and the scenes beyond. 



£be flDobern Christian ffaitb. 

These all died in faith. — Hebrews xi. 13. 

The term "faith 11 lias resembled many persons 
and ideas in having alternately enjoyed and suf- 
fered an eventful history. It sounds always the 
same to the ear, but it has passed along among 
the nations and among men with many a change 
of signification. Often the term has stood for a 
deeply religious feeling which had God for its 
object, and often it has stood for the Christian's 
attachment to his Master, and often it has im- 
plied a niind^ loyalty to the doctrines of a sect 
or a state. 

When our Puritan colonies gave signs of with- 
drawing from England, there appeared at once 
two parties — the Royalists and the Whigs. The 
former clung to royalty, the latter desired to found 
a republic. When in early times the Church of 
Palestine began to array itself against the other 
religions of the many races, faith was a political 
term and implied loyalty to a great political in- 
strument. In all those latter centuries, in which 
the church and state were united, the faithful 



49 

man was simply a loyalist, while the man who 
opposed the religious state was an infidel — a 
Tory, a Whig, an incipient traitor. When the 
Mohammedans speak of the situation, they desig- 
nate the Christians as " infidels." When the 
Christians carried on those amazing crusades, 
reaching from England to Palestine, their motive 
was to rescue the tomb of Christ from the do- 
minion of the infidel. 

There was a time in the history of the English 
establishment when Quakers and all independ- 
ents were infidels, because, in differing with the 
state church in some one idea, these persons 
threatened the throne of the state. In Calvin's 
day "faith" was a matter which imperiled the 
state. If a party should spring up around a 
Servetus,it might so expand as to become a rival, 
not in piety or good works, but in politics. In 
these political surroundings and perils it was 
deemed best to put Servetus out of the world. 
He may have possessed the faith of Abraham or 
St. Paul, but such a condition of things would 
be of no value in that particular period. So 
Mary Stuart entered Scotland as Queen, but she 
carried with her the Roman Catholic faith, and, 



50 

however valuable it might be at the gates of 
heaven, it was not highly prized at Edinburgh, 
nor was it afterwards admired by Queen Eliza- 
beth. 

While our United States was fully bound by 
its constitution to protect the property called 
slaves, the abolitionists were all called infidels. 
Their faith was most useless because it did not 
include the idea of the subjection of Africans to 
the white race. In those long years the true, 
pure faith included the doctrine that the slaves 
must be obedient to their masters. In those days 
one of the most beautiful of all moral scenes was 
that of a "believing master." He sat in his pew 
in sweet accord with revelation ; while afar north 
the infidel was hoping a great day of liberty 
might soon come. 

Thus for many centuries was the word "faith" 
bent hither and thither by the political exigencies 
which lay around it. Those in power were the 
faithful, those out of power were the infidels. 
And after a time the many sects came to subject 
the word "faith" to further twisting and distor- 
tion. The Episcopal Church of England held 
the " faith ; " the other sects had no religion. The 



51 

houses where they met were called meeting-houses. 
In Scotland the Presbyterians held the faith. It 
was not long before the Baptists got possession 
of it, and would not commune with the Church 
of England or the Church of Scotland. In this 
continent the same scene was enacted. It has 
been now just about forty years since a Presby- 
terian clergyman published a series of articles to 
prove that the Methodists did not hold the true 
faith, and could not hope for salvation. It is still 
quite common for some of the most proud and 
distinguished sects to confess that independents 
may be saved by some special mercy of God, but 
that there is no visible provision made for their 
comfort beyond the grave. 

Whoever will now scan the horizon will not 
fail to note that the grand cardinal word in re- 
ligion is making its escape from both the state 
and the sects, and is beginning to enjoy the lib- 
erty and the fullness of itself. 

Epictetus was for twenty years a slave. He 
possessed a mind equal to that of Plato. He was 
learned, just, patient, deep -thinking, but he was 
for half a life -time the servant of some classic 
nabob. He had his leg broken by one master. At 



52 

last lie gained his liberty, and at once began to 
receive the friendship of scholars and thinkers, and 
began to bless Rome with his morals and phil- 
osophy. Not otherwise, " Faith," a being of a 
divine genius and of a noble ancestry which ran 
back to Abraham, having a philosophy deeper 
than that of Greek or Roman, and being more 
poetic than many Homers, was long a slave, and 
was scourged with whips in many a land. At 
last this beautiful slave has found liberty, and 
hails now the new arena of labor and joy. For 
a long time she was a slave of the State, and 
was compelled to fill all mean and cruel offices. 
Then she was the slave of many sects, and was 
compelled to obey instantly the mandate of a 
hard master. At last this most noble slave has 
found liberty. It is not her first taste of free- 
dom. She was free when Abraham was trusting 
in God, and when Christ was saying, " Our 
Father who art in Heaven." 

In late months many distinguished persons 
have gone from the world, and " all these have 
died in the faith."" Time was when we could not 
have enjoyed such a thought. Once Tennyson, 
Whittier, Mr. Haves, Mr. Brooks, would have 



53 

been looked upon as living wholly outside the 
bounds of a saving belief. Tennyson's creed was 
exceedingly brief. To a life-long friend he said: 
" There is a power that watches over us, and 
our individuality endures. This is all my faith." 
He said: " My greatest wish is to have a clearer 
vision of God." In a moment of irony, not 
badly founded, he said: "The majority of 
Englishmen think of God as an ' immeasurable 
clergyman.' " The idea in religion which this 
poet loved with most passion was that of a life 
after death. Our age does not know in what 
details of religious thought any one of these men 
lived and died. A local high -churchman inti- 
mates that Phillips Brooks was a Unitarian. It 
is not generally known what was the religious 
creed of Mr. Hayes. It would thus seem that 
not only is the special creed not vital, but it has 
ceased to be a matter of common curiosity. The 
life of each one of these men was plainly seen, 
and the religious nature of each was plainly vis- 
ible. In the faith they lived and died. In 
them we see a faith that was free — free not 
from its own intrinsic worth, but free from the 
chains of a slave. 



54 

What a misfortune should some potentate 
catch you and twist your thumbs or arms to make 
you a Catholic, or, if you were a good Catholic, 
to make you a Protestant! To what a blessed 
freedom has faith come! The emancipation of 
our slaves is a scene scarcely more impressive 
than this emancipation of faith. It will never 
return to the old bondage, because that advance 
of intelligence which gained this liberty will 
keep the prize it has won. The contest of the 
present is between faith and atheism. The sects 
were but little against each other, because all 
the phases of Christian faith are of one essence, 
the antagonist of which is atheism, or that other 
unbelief which abandons all inquiry as hopeless. 

The modern faith stands forth a new creature. 
Like many other ideas, it has been deeply affected 
by the study of human rights. The knowledge of 
right no more comes to man without study than 
astronomy or geography comes to him without 
his research. Ignorance of rights is as natural as 
ignorance of mathematics or of languages. 
Olden times used to speak of the divine right of 
kings. The modern nations have taken away 
the divineness of that right and have placed a 



55 

king's right alongside that of a carpenter or a 
blacksmith — a right that depends upon the wish 
of the people. 

Along with this divine right of kings came 
the divine right of a white man to enslave black 
men, and along with these moral notions came 
the divine right of a husband to whip his wife. 
In the old economy the wife and daughter were 
at the mercy of the great masculine head of the 
house. It has been fully two hundred years since 
civilization began in earnest the study of the 
rights of humanity; and the progress mankind 
has made in inventions and discoveries is not 
greater than the advance it has made in unveil- 
ing the privileges of each soul. All human be- 
ings suddenly find themselves in a larger world. 
Each pursuit, each honor, each office, each pleas- 
ure is open to all. There are a few criminal laws 
which come between a bad man and his fellow 
creatures, but the forbidden field is small com- 
pared with the field of personal liberty. Men 
like Tennyson and Whittier have lived a long life 
in the world without being aware of any limita- 
tion of their freedom. The only compulsion from 
which they suffered was from the world outside 



56 

of man. Death came and commanded them to 
go away from earth. They obeyed in sweet sub- 
mission ; but as for this world, it overflowed with 
the full tide of emancipation. 

This deep study and love of privileges have 
affected religious faith, because, in confessing the 
liberties of the individual, society has taken away 
the right of society to touch a Quaker, or a Cal- 
vinist,or a Methodist, or a Baptist. In the name 
of all great principles, all are one, because these 
variations of thought and belief do not affect 
character or conduct. As soon as the highest 
forms of law began to tolerate all forms of relig- 
ious opinion, then society began also to smile at 
those differences of views which once seemed so 
great. It was necessary for law to run on in ad- 
vance of the church and announce the harmless- 
ness and the right of opinion. The church had 
not the courage nor the motive that gave promise 
of a democracy. It desired to urge onward its 
peculiar form of thought. It was necessary for 
a heroic politics to come, and, after the State had 
made many names and many forms of thought all 
lawful in one republic, the church could not but 
follow and admit a large group of sects into one 



57 

religion. If a nation could contain many forms 
of politicians and join them all in the one name 
of patriot, so the church could follow such a 
path and designate as Christians the members of 
a hundred sects. Thus had liberty and politics 
soon created a liberty in religion. 

As a republic assembles human beings in the 
name of all the wants that are general, assembles 
them in the name of those places where all the 
paths of action and being meet, so religion could 
not but imitate a republic, and make its "faith " 
expand so as to include many millions of minds 
which, differing in many lesser ideas, were all one 
in some great principles. Thus the power which 
shattered the thrones of the old kings shattered 
also the thrones of the Calvinist and the Catholic 
and permitted Faith to go free. Faith is free, 
because it is a time of wide emancipation. 

To the influence of republicanism must be 
added the power of increased reason. That was 
only a feeble intellect which could once assume 
that the infinite Deity would make a belief in a 
certain astronomy essential to the salvation of the 
soul. Yet when Galileo announced that the earth 
went around the sun,his soul was imperiled. The 



58 

modern reason can not suppose that a form of 
baptism plays any part in the future destiny of 
an adult or infant soul. The modern reason can 
not find this final salvation located in any one 
church, for as you would not require of a candi- 
date for the Presidency that he should be born in 
a frame house, or a log house, or a brick house, 
so you can not possibly assume that a candidate 
for heaven must have been reared in the Episco- 
pal or Methodist society. 

It has been claimed by the Catholics and high 
churchmen that the soul could reach heaven only 
through their walls, but all the great Romanists, 
at least, have abandoned this thought, and the 
recent Popes and Cardinals claim only that their 
sanctuary is the best way to Paradise, but no 
longer the only road. All the old exclusiveness 
of the churches thus falls to the ground. Reason 
is a new earthquake under these old miraculous 
walls, and, while they are crumbling to the dust, 
human souls are flocking to heaven from the fire- 
side of many a home and from those woods and 
fields which were so full of the presence of God. 
Modern intellects can no more connect the word 
"Salvation" with the word "Episcopacy," or 






59 

" Catholic," or " Calvinism, 1 ' than they can make 
it 1 depend upon Gothic churches or upon the pres- 
ence of a great clock in the church tower. Church 
chimes are indeed beautiful to hear in a summer 
evening, but beautiful also is the sighing of the 
great boughs of the oaks and elms, and the In- 
finite cares not which sound the heart chooses 
for its vesper tone. Once, when a Greek village 
was burning, the farmer saw a philosopher pass- 
ing out, but carrying nothing. He said to him, 
"Have you lost everything?'' and he said: "I 
have lost nothing, for there was nothing of me 
except myself." Thus our age is rapidly hurry- 
ing to that point when religious persons can wor- 
ship in any sanctuary or grove, because they are 
carrying their divine sentiment and obligation in 
their hearts. They carry nothing in their hands. 
They can place the left hand upon the bosom 
and say: u This is all there is of me." Such is 
the modern faith — free, great and loving. 

Within the borders of Christianity its objects 
are God and Jesus Christ; in the rationalized 
religions its supreme object is God alone. In 
either field faith is adequate, for if, as we are 
taught by the present Christianity, God and Christ 



(H) 

are one, then the utterance of Jesus is doubly 
true, and they who have seen the Father have 
seen the Son. In this logic the Unitarian and the 
Jew can not escape the worship of the Trinity, 
because the Father and the Son and the Spirit are 
inseparable forever. Such ought to be the ortho- 
dox estimate of the objects of faith. It remains 
more real and true that either of these faiths is 
the glory and safety of man's being. If we claim 
that a personal faith in Christ is essential, we take 
away not only the piety and hope from the pagan 
lands, but we overthrow the worship of that vast 
Hebrew republic and empire which was as full 
of faith as our prairies in summer are full of 
flowers. And, furthermore, if looking to Christ is 
essential, then comes the inquiry: " Whither did 
Christ, himself, look?" Bickter asks this delight- 
ful question: "Whither do those sunflowers point 
which grow upon the sun? 1 ' To whom did Jesus 
pray? Oh, ye Jews! Ye Unitarians! Ye de- 
vout ones in all the pagan lands ! Hesitate not to 
pass in silence all the theological schools on the 
earth and pray to our Father in heaven! Jesus 
of Nazareth did not come to destroy such a wor- 
ship, he came to make faith grow more powerful 



61 

in all the generations which should come after 
his appearing. He did not come to limit the 
beauty of earth or to make faith difficult, but 
rather he came to make an intelligent and simple 
trust in God the grandest sentiment in man's life. 
Had Christ been present when each martyr was 
bound to the stake for some deviation in the paths 
of theology, he would have unfastened every cord 
and have bidden each prisoner go free; had he 
been present in authority in the fourth century 
when the pagan Hypatia was lecturing on the 
gods and the high spirituality of Plato, he would 
have been a rapt listener to such a spotless life 
and to such a high eloquence; and the Christian 
Bishops would not have dared butcher such a 
worshiper and stain the streets of Alexandria 
with the blood of a bosom so religious, so learned, 
so white. 

Our age having thus emancipated faith, it 
clothes it each year with new dignity. The 
age which simplifies it makes it more sublime. 
That power which detaches Christian belief from 
the Gothic windows, from the candles on the 
altar, and from the chimes in. the towers, hands 
it over to society as a philosophy of the human 



62 

career. When an atheist utters his negatives and 
deduces all forms and all life from only dust, he 
has no outlook for himself, and can offer noth- 
ing to mankind. Not only does each individual 
life cease wholly at the grave, but it is without 
great impulse while it is passing its days in this 
world. Having come without a cause it wanders 
causelessly onward. It has no errand and needs 
no inspiration. 

Contrasted with such a negative mind, faith 
comes to man as a philosophy. Faith in God, 
faith in the Son of Man as God in the flesh, rises 
up in all the dignity of a sublime science. Under 
the United States lies a group of great laws. 
They are gathered up into a constitution, and this 
day all the States which lie in such a large num- 
ber between the two seas, and all the citizens in 
these States extract from those principles their 
progress and happiness. Faith in God is a simi- 
lar constitution under the soul. It is a vast the- 
ory which permeates the bulk of man's years. It is 
with man wherever he goes. As each day he sees 
the sun forever coming back into his childhood, 
his youth, his middle life, his old age, the same 
sun sprinkling the fiftieth year as it sprinkled the 



63 

first, so each day man goes forth in this faith — a 
strange encompassment from which he can not es- 
cape. Often, indeed, is this faith clouded, and 
days come and go without the brilliancy of noon, 
but even then a diffused light niters down through 
the clouds, and the heart full of sadness carries 
still a blessed hope. 

It is an error of many pulpits that they make 
faith only a means of saving the soul from God's 
wrath. There is in our East a preacher who de- 
clines the invitation to meet next summer in any 
congress of religions. He asks if he is expected 
to mingle his pious books and truths with those 
of Swedenborg and Mozoomdar and Channing ? 
In his words one may note at once that he thinks 
of "faith" as a machine for performing a singu- 
lar task. His machine is inseparable from robes, 
holy water and thirty-nine articles. Such a mind 
would be out of place indeed in a congress of re- 
ligions; for such a congress would love to see 
faith, not as being a sectarian potency, but as be- 
ing a philosophy which encompassed Jacob's pil- 
low with a vision of angels thousands of years 
before the little candles were lighted by this 
eastern altar, and which made Christ look to God 



64 

and Heaven long before this modern priest made 
himself comely in vestments. 

The congress of religions must be an effort to 
teach all clergymen and the thinking millions 
that there is a faith which has been and is and 
will be the philosophy of man's coming hither and 
of his going hence. As Bishop Keane, the Cath- 
olic, could leave his Roman College for a day to 
talk to the Unitarians on the being of God, as he 
possessed the intelligence which could think for 
an hour away from the ideas of transubstantiation 
and a Holy Father at Rome, so can all minds 
which possess any traces of greatness find in a re- 
ligious congress some life-like portrait of religious 
faith. As a thousand voices can in music join in 
the " Hallelujah Chorus," and make the holy 
song beat upon the listener's heart as the sea 
smites its rocky shores, so can a thousand re- 
ligions combine in eloquence which can -make 
faith in God stand forth as the matchless phil- 
osophy of our race. Grand congress, to which 
each one coming will leave behind him his little- 
ness, and journey, carrying with him only the 
greatest truth of his hours of worship — a con- 
gress which will ask from each man only those 
moments which are great! 



Go 

What form of philosophy is this modern faith ? 
Is it an entangled web of thought like that of 
Hegel? Is it a problem, an enigma, like the 
theories of Berkeley and Locke ? It is nothing of 
such nature. It is something so simple that 
even optimism is a name too learned for its daily 
wear. The earliest youth casts its young heart 
into it; the missionaries have taught the Indians 
to sing its hymn. To teach simplicity, Isaac 
Newton became a child. To illustrate its sim- 
plicity, Christ used the humblest of all speech, 
and wore the simplest robe, and took little 
children up into his arms; and when lately 
our great men were dying, one of them said: 
" I shall soon be with my loved one ;" the other 
said: " I am going home." 

Let us, indeed, call this modern faith the op- 
timism of our world — the most roseate optimism 
which has yet emerged from the heart of the 
common man or from the porch of philosophy. 
Strange to say, it issued from all human con- 
ditions at once. While the philosopher was 
framing its agreement, the negro and red man 
were chanting its psalm; and while the divine 
Jesus was preaching its hopes and promises, 



66 

a group of fishermen became inspired and a com- 
mon womanhood baptized it with happy tears. 
It is the optimism of earth. It shakes the poison 
out of all our wild flowers. In eloquence, it sur- 
passes all the orators; in poetry,it transcends all 
the poets; it is time's greatest music; it is man's 
greatest gallery of art. Happy the young per- 
sons who are just entering this arena of a free and 
vast faith. Happy fate, to live where many creeds 
mingle into one, and where many denominations 
meet in one love for mankind and God! The 
young heart which can appreciate such a sim- 
plicity of belief need not stand aloof from the or- 
ganic churches; for a denomination is nothing 
but a brotherhood organized for both the duties 
and pleasures of religion. No soldier should 
love to march or battle alone. His heart wishes 
to hear the tramp of a regiment, and to see at 
times the flag of a great cause. Thus the relig- 
ious heart should never attempt to march the way 
of salvation alone. It can, indeed, all alone, un- 
baptized, find piety and find heaven, but the 
highest usefulness and the highest happiness 
come, when hand is joined with hand, and when 
the heart feels the presence of a host of glori- 



67 

ous comrades, and when the ear catches the 
hymn of high worship sung by many voices. The 
fields and sky inspire, spring inspires, summer 
inspires; but man extracts most of his inspiration, 
not from skies and oceans, but from what is 
greater than all else — the mysterious God-like 
humanity. 



pbillips Broofta. 

Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God.— I Peter ii. 17. 

It would be an act of ingratitude were this 
congregation to pass in silence the death of 
Phillips Brooks. Our church lay on the outer 
border of his bishopric. When, two or three 
years ago, in a loftiness of body which was only 
an emblem of a loftiness of mind, this preacher 
walked down this aisle to join you in worship, 
you all felt as though he were an elder brother 
in your religious family, and had come to visit 
his kin. Many of you, when spending a Sunday 
in the city where this modern apostle spoke, went 
joyfully to hear words which you knew would 
fall like manna from the sky. At last each of 
you seemed to hold some personal interest in 
Phillips Brooks; and now to-day we must all 
come up to his memory bringing our tears. 
Chosen Bishop in 1891, the new title could not 
make much headway against the name of Phil- 
lips. In instances not a few, when the title of 
"Bishop" is conferred upon a preacher, it does 
not take the previous name of the man more 



69 

than a few minutes to get out of the way. If 
large bodies move slowly, the converse ought to 
be true and tell us why, of ten, when a common 
preacher is made Bishop, his name as a human 
being instantly disappears. In the case of this 
great friend who has bidden us "good-by," the 
human being could not be easily displaced by 
any office in the gift of the church. As the 
names of Edmund Burke and William Pitt and 
Daniel Webster never needed any decoration 
from the catalogue of epithets, thus the name of 
Phillips Brooks did not take kindly to any form 
of prefix or supplement. If the peculiar duties 
of the office could have gone without carrying a 
title with them, the scene would have been hap- 
pier; but to attempt to confer upon Phillips 
Brooks a title was too much like painting the 
pyramids. 

William Pitt was called the " Great Com- 
moner" not only because he was a member of the 
u House," but because he was by nature a dealer 
in the most universal of ideas — those ideas which 
were good not only for royal families but for all 
mankind. When the Colonies attempted to se- 
cure their right from the Crown, Mr. Pitt gave 



70 

his eloquence to the cause of the Colonies, be- 
cause his mind could see the human race more 
easily than it could see the little group of gran- 
dees with the King at their head. Into the mind 
of Pitt all the human rights which had been de- 
tected and expressed between the Greek period 
and the time of the Earl of Chatham crowded to 
be reloved and respoken. As science deals in 
the universal truth about trees or stones or stars, 
so William Pitt dealt in the propositions which 
held true in all lands. 

In the vast empire of religions Phillips Brooks 
was the " great commoner.' 1 Whether his mind 
passed through the pages of the gospel, or read 
as best it could the history of the primitive 
church, or read the confessions of Augustine and 
saw him pick up a psalter or heard him pray for 
the dead, or if he read all over the dogmas and 
practices of the Roman Catholic fathers, he al- 
ways emerged from the study infatuated with 
only those truths and customs which seemed most 
needful to the character and salvation of the hu- 
man multitude. He never possessed the power 
to turn a little incident into a great doctrine. 
He could not by any means mistake a piece of 



71 

the cross for a potency which could heal disease; 
nor was he able to look upon a lighted candle as 
playing any part in any form of natural or 
revealed religion. He stood at that point where 
all the Christian sects meet. No preacher could 
go to Christ without seeing this brother as being 
in the same path. All denominations walked 
with him and enjoyed a conversation which made 
their hearts burn on the way. He was like that 
lofty arch in Paris toward which all the great 
streets seem to run. When we think of the dis- 
cords which are now sounding all through the 
field of both the Catholic and Protestant denom- 
inations, we must recall Phillips Brooks as the 
reconciliation of the nineteenth century. 

But no one who loves war can fill the office of 
such a "great commoner." That fame must rest 
on an intellect which is wreathed with the gar- 
lands of peace. This man did not fight the 
ritualists or the Romanists; he came forward 
with the large and positive truths of religion and 
permitted all that was false or little to die of 
neglect. His pulpit was so full of light that his 
}:>eople forgot to bring candles to the chancel; 
the fragrance of the gospel was so exceeding 



12 

sweet that no acolytes were needed to swing 
smoking censers in front of the holy altar. We 
have all sat before him when the light was all 
in his forehead and the incense all in his heart. 

In the late generations the Episcopal Church 
has been producing some great men. When the 
clergy of that denomination in England had be- 
come remarkable for the absence of learning and 
piety, and remarkable for the presence of igno- 
rance, indolence and vice; when few who wore the 
name of clergyman possessed education enough 
to compose a sermon, and had not piety enough 
to care for the parish whose taxes they consumed, 
the Wesleyan reform sprang up. That effort 
was wholly a contempt for a dead sanctuary and 
an ardent longing for a religion like that of the 
Savior of men. It was a new effort to rescue the 
tomb of Christ from the hand of the new infidels. 
Jonathan Swift and Laurence Sterne had divided 
their time between the writings for the pulpit 
and writings for the promotion of depravity. 

Sterne published a few sermons, but his liter- 
ary books were so disreputable that the sermons 
were soon forgotten in the pleasure which the 
vulgarity of "Tristram Shandy" gave to that age. 



73 

It was the prevalence of such churchmen that 
compelled Wesley to rise up in behalf of a Chris- 
tian life that bade fair to be forgotten. Wesley - 
ism did not contemplate a new church; it was an 
uprising against ecclesiastical infamy. Awakened 
by Wesleyism, the National Episcopacy under- 
went a great reform and ran boldly forward. 

A pulpit paid by national taxes easily falls 
from virtue, and, as often there were parochial 
schools where the teacher regularly drew a sal- 
ary from the state but had an empty school-house, 
so there were pulpits which gave a living to some 
man in holy orders, who seldom read a service 
and still less frequently wearied himself or an 
audience with a discourse. It is now about fifty 
years since there came to the English Episcopal 
Church a second great impulse. It was not wholly 
a reform, but it poured into that old sanctuary so 
much new piety and enthusiasm that it can not 
but be called a marked part of a forward move- 
ment. It passes now in history under -any one 
of several names: the "tractarian movement," 
or the "high-church movement," or the "ritual- 
istic movement," or " Puseyism." A few minds, 
deeply religious, — men who in the seventeenth 



74 

century would have been the companions of Fen- 
elon — began to study the far-off church of the 
fathers. They longed to rebuild their plundered 
and razed Jerusalem. In the long reign of vice 
and neglect even the beautiful buildings of God 
had become battered ruins. The house was as 
fallen as the heart. 

These men, sons of Oxford, went back in his- 
tory to find that day of splendor at which the wor- 
ship of God began to sink. They shoveled away the 
earth from their buried Pompeii and soon found 
the rich old colors upon the long hidden walls. 
It was a most valuable labor of history and love, 
for out of it came the rebuilding and repairing of 
the churches and chapels of England; and came 
also a living religion which joined a pure belief 
to a holy life. Hundreds of millions of dollars 
soon went into the rebuilding of the houses of 
religion ; but there is no money which can express 
the new Christianity which began at once to 
re- adorn the soul. 

The men who came back from that historic 
study, and who joined in this pious renaissance,, 
soon divided into two classes, the high church 
and low church, the former comprising those men 



75 

who brought back all the rites and emblazonry 
of the earlier times, while the low ehnrch be- 
came eclectic, and, feeling that the present had 
outgrown the emblematic period, asked England 
to accept the simple religion of Jesus and his 
apostles. The high church became enamored of 
all they discovered and made valuable old atti- 
tudes, old positions, a facing the east, showy 
vestments, priestly offices, candles, incense, con- 
fessional, and many a genuflection. 

These were the ritualists, with whom the sandal 
of a Christ was the essential part of the Savior of 
mankind. The low church became equally en- 
amored only of that part of the New Testament 
which they found in the old lava beds, and, mak- 
ing of little moment the robes and motions and 
incense of the remote yesterday, they espoused 
Christianity which reached out a kind hand 
toward the sects which had filed down from Cal- 
vin and Wesley. The high church used it& 
relics for building a wall around itself. And 
thus it stands to -day, walled in, and as exclusive as 
though it feared that its friendship might escape 
and be wasted upon a Presbyterian or a Wesley an, 
and as though the love of God might escape and 



invade some meeting -house which did not make 
the sign of the cross, or might escape and save 
some infant that was dying at midnight without 
being baptized. 

It can not in reason be charged upon the rit- 
ualists that they make religion too ornate. Man 
kas not lived in this world long enough to enable 
him to say that any part of life can hold too much 
of real beauty. The temperate zone from the 
Gulf to the St. Lawrence is beautiful in June, but 
it has never dared laugh at the more abundant 
blossomings of the tropics. Many of us have had 
happy moments in those sanctuaries where grand 
choral music has marched up and down and in 
and out. 

There may be other minds which love to face 
the east, and other minds which love to see 
incense rising as though it were carrying heaven- 
ward the burden of human prayers. Persons of 
little or much culture must be eclectics in the 
realm of beauty for the church, or city, or the 
home. If the ritualists feel proud of a pictured 
religion, and ask that many texts of scripture be 
uttered in material emblems, and that the candles 
of Solomon's Temple reappear in the modern 



77 

house of God, they have a taste we are all bound 
to respect. We concede the same right to those 
Christians who love the rite of washing each other's 
feet. We confess the ritualism of the Salvation 
Army, which pictures Christ as the Captain of 
their host and which follows Paul in the dream 
of being a good soldier of the Lord. Let ritual- 
ism appear where it may, in the high church, or 
the Roman church, or in the Salvation Army, it 
must pass along as a lawful form and variation 
of human taste. Its harmfulness has of late years 
come from minds, which, instead of admiring and 
enjoying ritualism , have descended to the worship 
of it— the worship of such fugitive and unim- 
portant accessories— which made it difficult for 
a Bishop's crown to reach a forehead which 
loved the sublime spirituality of Jesus more than 
it loved the fleeting pageantry of perfumes and 
colors, and which loved the face turned toward all 
the sects in their hour of prayer more than he 
loved a genuflection or a face turned toward the 
east. 

In the east we see only the sun, but all around 
this man lay the hopes and griefs of the human 
soul, more tremendous than a thousand suns. If 



any proof were wanting, to show that ritualism, 
when idolized, turns men who might have been 
scholars and thinkers and orators into half child- 
ish natures, busy in the ornaments of an altar,like 
children around the Christmas tree, that proof 
may be read in the difficulties which lay between 
Phillips Brooks and the high office for which he 
seemed to have been born. In itself, ritualism 
may be a lawful form of religion, but history 
shows that it may be cultivated until it excludes 
what it once ornamented, and ends by becoming 
only the tropical effiorescence of human vanity. 
A deep attachment to ritualism may be taken as 
a good-by bidden by the young preacher to the 
height and depth of thought which belongs to the 
pulpit in all the great period of church life. A 
high ritualism is a most perfect and most alluring 
means for keeping the mind of the clergyman 
within the limits of a perpetual childhood. A 
ritualist ought to admire his ceremony as a man 
loves flowers — happy when the blossoms are near, 
but happy also in the barren fields of winter or 
in Sahara's leafless sand. 

If one thinks of the high churchmen and the 
low churchmen as visiting the old past to find 



79 

once again the lost church of the fathers, one 
must see the ritualist entering our age, not only 
bringing much of the apostolic doctrine, but also 
as having his arms full of candles, of priestly 
robes, of curtains fastened by "loops of blue each 
to its sister," and full of " badger-skins dyed red" ; 
and the same spectator must see the low church- 
man coming from that act of exhuming, carrying 
in his hands the words and deeds and life of our 
Lord. You may all, if you wish, admire many a 
high churchman acting in his peculiar office, but 
for this absent Bishop you can not but cherish a 
greater admiration and a deeper love. He reached 
out his hand to all men, and so sincere was he 
that his hand always pointed out the path of his 
heart. 

When the heart studies the bygone years, it 
ought to esteem great in the past that which it 
wishes to come true in the future. We ought to 
look deeply at the yesterday in order to catch the 
image of to-morrow. And, as the soul of Phillips 
Brooks longed to see a Christian unity and equal- 
ity, longed to see a civilization which should re- 
semble the life of the Son of Man, he gathered up 
from the fathers the doctrines which tended to 



80 

make noble men and to join them into a wide 
brotherhood. The ritualists seem, by some error 
of locality, to have exhumed the Mosaic age; the 
low- churchmen seemed to have laid open to view 
a more recent arena — that of Jesus. 

In his wanderings in the old religious world, 
this lamented mortal recalls that Dante who, in 
his great dream, drew near a holy mountain, 
which lifted up its form not far from the paradise 
of his God. The devout wanderer did not see 
any candles or vestments or studied posturing; he 
saw no apostolic succession. The world around 
him was too great to be in harmony with the rites 
and emblems of some fleeting year. One by one 
the angels came over him, but each one was chant- 
ing some benediction which had once fallen from 
the lips of the Master. No sooner had the words 
sounded, "Blessed are the pure in heart," than on 
came some other winged choristers saying," Blessed 
are the merciful." To the same Italian worshiper 
at last a great chorus chanted the Lord's Prayer, 
all amplified like a tune in music which breaks 
up into four parts: 

a Oh Thou Almighty Father! Who dost make 
The heavens Thy dwelling, not in bounds confined, 
But that with love intenser there Thou viewest 



81 



Thy primal effluence, hallowed be the name. 

Join each created being to extol 

Thy might, for worthy humblest thanks and praise 

Is Thy blessed Spirit. May the Kingdom's peace 

Come unto us, for we, unless it come, 

With all our striving thither tend in vain. " 

These are the words which our great American 
" commoner " heard chanted in the lofty cathedrals 
of the past, and these are the words he wished to 
hear sounding in the greater aisles and corridors 
of the future. He extracted greatness from the 
past because he wished history to be only another 
name for his soul's hope. His mind conceived of 
a service and an anthem too great to be read or 
sung by his limited sect. His ritual must include 
a hundred Books of Common Prayer; his vest- 
ments must include the robes of a Louis XIV, 
the habit of an exiled Quaker, and the seamless 
coat of Jesus. He found his universal and per- 
petual harmony in the words: "Blessed are the 
pure in heart," 

If you would find a reason for the confessed 
eloquence of this eminent Christian, you must 
begin by studying the advantage found in a mind 
which loved the whole human family, and then 
loved all the great truths which hold the people's 



82 

happiness. Eloquence is the utterance of great 
truths in a manner worthy of the truths. But 
there can be no such utterance without passion. 
This man was capable of loving even the negro 
slave. When those old days of trial were brood- 
ing over the nation, Phillips Brooks flamed up on 
the slaves' side. After the slaves were free he 
traveled a thousand miles to plead in this city for 
the cause of the education and full citizenship of 
those homeless Africans. Only a little group of 
our citizens appeared in the large hall, for the 
orator was young in his fame and the city was 
young in its power to appreciate such an appeal 
from heart to heart. None the less did the speech 
run like molten iron from a furnace, thus teaching 
us who listened that oratory is great truth uttered 
with great passion. Gesture and tone are insig- 
nificant. 

It is necessary for this truth and passion to 
enjoy the noble accessories of language and style. 
It is difficult for a great mind, great heart, great 
language, and good style,all to meet in one human 
being. The distance between orators is therefore 
very great. Only a few come to us each hundred 
years. In Bishop Brooks, all these ingredients 



83 

mingled. He had by nature and by study mas- 
tered the one lan^ua^e of his race. It became at 
last the hundred gates of his soul's Thebes. At 
these portals the riches of his age passed in and 
out. He used no dead words, no old, worn- out 
phrases, at which the brain of the listener sinks to 
sleep. His words were all alive, and they came 
singing like the string and arrows of the won- 
derful bow of Ulysses. His words came too 
rapidly indeed, but his ideas were instantly seen 
and instantly felt to be true. Each word was dis- 
tinct, like a single note in some rapid melody, an 
inseparable part of a beautiful song. 

AVhat a simplicity there is in all such high 
speech! because the theme is so large and so ab- 
sorbing that it shames away the most of artifice, 
and makes the little art of the piece wholly invis- 
ible. If those final words ascribed to the Bishop 
were indeed spoken, his mind was not greatly 
under a cloud, for the simple sentence whispered 
to a servant: u You need not care for me longer; 
I am going home, 1 ' is made of the kind of words 
which earth needs when it is fading, and which 
the final home asks for when it is opening its 
gates to a noble spirit, once a pilgrim here. Death 



84 

always asks for simple language, because its nrys« 
tery and sadness and hope are all the ornamenta- 
tion the speaker or listener can bear. Ah! sad 
loss such a being to all the churches of our 
country! He was a man so symmetrical and so 
fitted to all the hours and need of our land that 
the ofiice of bishop went to him, not to add any- 
thing to his fame or power, but to be itself hon- 
ored and exalted. It was the ofiice that went to 
be crowned. As an Episcopal bishop he was 
much less than as the great, free orator of the 
Christian philosophy. But the terms "bishop" 
and "commoner" are both made sacred now by 
the sudden advent of death. 

It is certain that this name will long remain 
the center of a magic power. The Baptist, with 
his close communioD,can not but be impressed 
with that scene of brotherhood which lies so out- 
spread in this churchman's life; the Unitarians 
can also look towards Phillips Brooks, to know 
how rationalism of a high school may be joined 
to the most marked spirituality and piety; the 
restless and debating Presbyterians may study 
him, to learn what peace and usefulness they can 
find in a Christianity many times simpler than 



85 

their confession of faith; to him may the low- 
church look for perpetual vindication; and to 
him should all the young ritualistic clergy turn, 
not to abandon their pictured and highly colored 
worshij^Sjbut to mark how the pulpit of a Chris- 
tian teacher and thinker towers above the swing- 
ing of censers and the adjustment of robes and 
the graceful bowing of the body in its acts of 
devotion. He should warn them against the folly 
of a half wasted life. 

While we are thus standing by such a grave, 
the inquiry comes from many whether ritualism 
and Romanism are to displace the simpler 
churches and come into almost despotic power. 
Of this result there seems little probability. The 
broad church is young, but ritualism is as old as 
the world. It ruled in the Mosaic age. It ruled 
in India, Egypt, and in all great nations before 
the Son of Man came, and then entering Chris- 
tianity it tilled with its pageant all temples up to 
the days of Luther. 

The broad church has been in the world only 
half a century. In that brief period what mas- 
ter minds it has produced! It is nothing else than 
the old Christianity of rites and doctrines smitten 



86 

by the deeper thought of these later generations. 
That reason which has created the modern world 
will most surely drive religion toward a holy life, 
a simple piety and a wide brotherhood. Roman- 
ism will be smitten by the same hand, and one by 
one shall fall from it the follies and vices which 
that church gathered up by passing through the 
middle centuries of ignorance and sin. That new 
thought, which has transformed despotisms into 
republics and slaves into the citizens of England 
and France, will not spare the old life and ideas 
of the temple of prayer. The antiquity of Ro- 
manism and ritualism will not protect them. 
Many things thousands of years old have died in 
this century. It is the great graveyard of 
antiquity and the beautifully draped cradle of 
a new youth. 

When it is said that reason will smite the old 
churches, it is not meant that any violence will 
come. Heaven keep violence far away from all 
those Roman and Protestant altars where our 
parents said their prayers! Reason will smite 
them only as it smote the valley of the Missis- 
sippi and covered it with civilization ; smite them 
only as the sun smites the fields in April and 



87 

makes them bloom ; smite them as reason touched 
Phillips Brooks when he was young and made 
his heart warm with love and his forehead white 
with pure truth. 



1Rew Zimce flfcafce 1Rew flDen, 

And the child grew and became strong in spirit. — Luke i. 80. 

We should all be glad at the return of those 
days which ask us to study the life of some great 
man. It is a maxim in the old books that youth 
is taught by nothing so much as by example. 
All the philosophies and theories of human life 
are dull reading when compared with a simple 
history of some actual heart. Some abstract 
writer, like Hegel or Herbert Spencer, might have 
told the world what a single human being might 
do were he left alone upon an island far from all 
the paths of the ships, but a simple story, like 
that of Selkirk, outweighs all the a priori reason- 
ing that could be written. Should some professor 
offer to lecture to us upon the vocal cords, nerves, 
lungs and ribs that are used in producing the 
eight tones, very light would be our interest in 
the lecture should Parepa Rosa or Jenny Lind 
offer to us, instead of the learned paper, a great 
throat full of sweet song. Thus biography comes 
to us with an unequaled charm. It is not a talk 
about life; it is life itself. In the realm of the 



89 

abstract we are all half infidels. We do net 
believe half you say. When you come back 
from great scenes and attempt to tell us of the 
vale of Tempe,or of Yosemite, or of the canons 
of the West, the words fall dead in our ears. 

A half day in a wonderful spot of mountain 
or sea, a half day where the pyramids stand 
silently, or where the Acropolis mourns over 
her scattered marbles, takes all unbelief out of 
the soul and lifts it far above all indifference. 
Thus great names like those of Washington, 
Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln are 
the realities of the great scene, and while we are 
in their presence the theoretical has all stepped 
aside and we seem gazing at real faces and to 
hear real voices. 

Mr. Emerson says that we all love to read 
history because we make it personal and are full 
of the feeling as to what we should have done 
had we been there. When we read of the dome 
of St. Peter's, we feel that it is the kind of a 
dome we should have thought of had we been in 
Rome at the time; and when we read the speech 
of Demosthenes on the Crown, we feel that, had 
we been in Athens on that day, we should have 



90 

been glad to utter similar sentiments. It is prob- 
able Emerson's thought is defective; for the great 
beauty of history comes from its power to lead 
the mind away from the abstract and over to the 
actual. Philosophy may describe a nightingale! 
history is the bird singing in the hedge of blos- 
soming thorn. Each object, be it religion, or 
patriotism, or faithfulness, or love, is best seen 
in some human being; expressed in a life. The 
popularity of a novel comes chiefly from its being 
a book in which two or more human beings act 
out the poetry, joy and sadness of a great senti- 
ment. A high novel is the biography of an 
attachment. 

When, each winter, the day of George Wash- 
ington comes back to us, it sends the mind off in 
contemplation of some part of the past landscape. 
In no one year can we study and enjoy all the 
picture. The birthday has passed by before we 
have feasted fully upon the foreground or back- 
ground or central part of the impressive canvas. 
How can we exhaust in an hour a soul which it 
required centuries to create % How can we exam- 
ine in a day a life that was in length sixty- seven 
years? Those years were all full of events of 



91 

great interest, for the latter days rolled back 
their splendor upon the early life and made the 
school-house, the surveyor's compass and chain, 
and the adventures among the Indians, all full 
and active partners of the times of battling for 
liberty, and of the times of peaceful sway over a 
happy republic. Should our children come once 
a year to the study of this birthday, there would 
be at the end of a long life fields of direct or 
cognate truth over which their traveled feet 
had not yet passed. After the childhood of 
Washington had been reviewed there would 
come the school-book scenes. Washington and 
his mother would be a theme. Washington and 
the army, Washington and England, Washing- 
ton and France, Washington and victory, Wash- 
ington and religion would be mighty subjects 
for reflection of our youth or old age. Sad 
thought that we shall all die without having 
seen in all lights our nation or those who laid 
its foundations! 

Each age is always busy making men out of 
the material it may have on hand. The child 
must possess all these mental powers which can 
be taught and expressed. Given natural genius 



92 

and sensibility, the age then shapes the drift of 
all powers and gives color to thoughts and 
emotions. That must be by nature an extraor- 
dinary mind that can catch all the good of a 
period and can reject all its evil. As to a devotion 
to liberty and the power to express all the argu- 
ments in behalf of a republic, Thomas Paine 
equaled George Washington; but in picking up 
the qualities of the age Mr. Paine seized upon 
too much evil and omitted too much good. We 
must always be thankful to Thomas Paine for 
the great help he rendered the infant nation; but 
we can now see that he did not become a full 
utterance of the eighteenth century. He could 
not hold his own mind in a beautiful equipoise. 
He could not treat with respect men of all shades 
of religious opinion. He was restless, aimless, 
intemperate, more like the wild Rousseau of 
France than like the symmetrical man of Mt. 
Vernon. It was not to the injury of Mr. Paine 
that he was not orthodox in Christianity, for his 
deism abounded and took in many of those who 
were greatest in that day. He absorbed too 
many frailties and omitted too many of the great 
attributes of mankind. 



93 

AY lien, long ago, the ax -men went into the 
woods to find among the trees one suitable to be 
shaped into a mast for a large clipper ship, thou- 
sands of trees had to be passed by with only a 
glance. One tree had been twisted by the wind; 
one had been creased by the lightning; one had, 
when young, been bent down by some playing 
bears; one had been too near to its neighbors, 
and had been dwarfed in the top; one had been 
too near a stream, and had had too much sun and 
air on the side next the water, its trunk had bent 
toward its greatest limb ; one had in youth been 
scorched by the fire of a hunter. At last a tree 
is found from which all defects are wanting, and 
up, straight as a draftsman's rule, runs the wooden 
shaft for a hundred feet. The woodsmen all re- 
joice, for the mast is found. The tree is elected 
from amid its fellows, and soon, instead of wear- 
ing its verdure in the forest, it goes careening on 
the ocean, holding up white sails to the journey- 
ing wind. Not otherwise when some weak col- 
onies need a chieftain for war and peace; they 
must pass by many a name great in fame before 
they find the citizen who holds all, the virtues 
they know and love. No one dare say that 



94 

Washington was the only man who could have 
perf ormed the needed task. There may have been 
one other or many others who could have led the 
peojDle to independence. The one man having 
been found, the people did not pursue longer the 
search. Such a search would be a foolish task 
for an historian. Having found the mast, the ax- 
men left the woods. 

There are few scenes more attractive than the 
picture of a new age making new men. The 
eighteenth century was a new era. Its new life 
did not take the direction of railways and tel- 
egraphs, or of physical implements and machines; 
rather did it make a study of new principles in 
politics and religion. It was a logical storm, and 
the storm centers were monarchy and the Roman 
Catholic Church. England and France were 
storm-swept districts, England studying politics 
and deism, France studying both politics and re- 
ligion. The thirteen colonies were upon the bor- 
der of the disturbance, and, while men like Burke 
and Pitt innamed their love of liberty, Boling- 
broke, Hume, Gibbon and Voltaire undermined 
the Roman Church, and, under deism and repub- 
licanism, monarchy fell in France and freedom 
arose on both sides of the sea. 



95 

Hume's life-long home was Edinburgh. Thus 
the attack upon orthodoxy reached from Edin- 
burgh to Paris, and was violent for nearly a 
hundred years. The political churches in Eng- 
land and Scotland were almost as deeply hated as 
the one in France, and at the close of the cen- 
tury there were few statesmen that paid any great 
deference to any orthodox form of Christianity. 
Deism and republicanism traveled together. 

This was not a logical necessity; it followed 
from the fact that in both France and England 
the church and despotism had long been full 
partners. To fight against the miraculous claims 
of the church was to make a path for freedom. 
The history of the Church of England was the 
history of all forms of wrong; the Scotch Church 
had been less cruel because it had been less pow- 
erful; the Puritans in New England had shown 
terrific violence; the Roman Church had surpassed 
all because it had reached over more millions 
and over more centuries, and thus had trampled 
upon humanity with a malignant cruelty which 
now surpasses all modern powers of belief. 
Statesmen created in such a period had to become 
cold to orthodoxy when they became ardent for 



96 

liberty ; and we can not wonder that when at last 
they drafted the fundamental law of the land 
they left all religion wholly outside of the con- 
stitution. Many of these trainers of law carried 
in their hearts a simple Christianity, but they had 
seen enough of the union of church and state. 
They were men of a new era. 

Society is not merely an eating, drinking, feast- 
ing throng —not merely a student, a worker, but 
it is also an assemblage of ideas. It is a common 
storehouse, to which the past wills its thought 
and to which the present adds its accretions. 
But society is made np of men and women. 
These persons, then, are the final massing of truth, 
and when we examine the close of the eighteenth 
century we find each being who was sensitive 
and who moved about in his time, laden with all 
the wisdom which lay exhumed between his birth 
and death. 

Thus it comes to pass that Voltaire, Boling- 
broke, Hume, Pitt, Burke, Franklin, Washing- 
ton, Lafayette, Jefferson, Paine and Hamilton 
moved along in a wonderful unity of belief, both 
political and religious, each one wearing some 
little beauty or deformity of disposition, but all 



07 

marked by one religious rationalism and one love 
of a republic. They all had come up out of the 
destruction of a great past and were all carrying 
the weapons which had driven the church from 
crime and vice to virtue, and had driven kings to 
a hasty but deep study of human rights. It is a 
beautiful sight to see all those great foreheads 
and mark them grow radiant in the increasing 
day of the eighteenth century. 

The kind hearts now living recall with regret 
that George Washington owned and used slaves. 
That fact can not be justified, but it can be par- 
tially explained. Sympathy with black slaves 
had not yet come in the days of our great chief- 
tain. All eyes were turned toward the despotic 
church and the despotic throne. The eighteenth 
was the white man's century. White men had 
been worked, whipped, burned, murdered, exiled, 
tortured for many generations. On one occasion 
sixty thousand men and women had been murdered 
in a single night. All the pages of history were red 
with innocent blood. France was on the eve of 
the greatest revolution of all times, and the thir- 
teen colonies were about to rebel against the most 
powerful kingdom on earth. 



We must not rudely demand that the Wash- 
ington thus watching the European sky should 
feel the wrongs of the negroes in Georgia or Vir- 
ginia. The mind has always assailed evils one at 
a time. Washington all through his manhood 
carried enough of care and even acute pain. It 
was no light thing to sunder the ties which bound 
him to the mother country. His ancestors were 
over the sea. English rule had honored him. To 
rebel against country and church and help win 
and secure independence were subjects enough to 
fill up a mind and heart for a score of years. 

When the great leader did touch upon African 
slavery, his words were in harmony with the great 
emancipation which came in the next period. 
The men around Washington did not reach the 
rights of women, because, noble as those men 
were, they could not be infinite. It seems enough 
that they created the greatest of all republics. 
They reaped the peculiar harvest of their pe- 
riod, and stored its yellow sheaves. Other ideas 
must wait for some other day to come. 

The "other idea" did not delav Ions; its 
coming. When the thrilling events in France, 
England and the colonies had become the prop- 



99 

erty of history, and all the men who made them 
had fallen into their graves, then in the nineteenth 
century came slowly the wave of a new senti- 
ment. Early in the new era the Breckinridge 
family in Kentucky began to advocate the re- 
moval of the negroes to Africa. The coloniza- 
tion scheme was the first form of this sympathy. 
At times some master would break over all 
barriers, and remove all his slaves north and 
set them free. Many a group of slaves found 
themselves moving toward liberty, their master 
leading them towards the promised land. Abo- 
litionism as an idea, as a political truth, and as an 
evident form of humanity, followed the coloniza- 
tion, and had all its orators in all the border 
slave States before the North had burst out into 
a flame. Memory can easily recall Cassius M. 
Clay and John G. Fee, who made the interior of 
Kentucky hear, from first to last, the pathetic 
story of the slave. Kentucky women shed tears 
over slavery before you were born. 

As the years came the number of orators 
and essayists increased, and sermons, orations, 
novels, stories and poems began to fall like 
autumn leaves, only not in the world's autumn, 



100 

but in its spring. In 1833 England set free all 
her slaves; and by 1838 the song sung too soon 
by Cowper had become true in all the wide em- 
pire over which the girl -queen Victoria had just 
begun her sway. That noble girl of nineteen 
years, just crowned, might have chanted the 
words of Cowper, then just fulfilled: 

" Slaves can not live in England; if their lungs 
But breathe our air, that moment they are free; 
They touch our country and their shackles fall." 

If the eighteenth was the white man's cen- 
tury, the nineteenth was the century of mankind. 
Within its richer years a wider justice and a 
greater kindness were to come, and no color or 
sex, or youth or age, or wealth or poverty, were 
to affect the play of human rights. From 1820 
to 1860 there was but one eloquence for the 
nation, and but' one great song — the one theme was 
the release of the slave. There was no elo- 
quence or song against the black man, for he who 
opposed liberty could not be eloquent, and the 
song which would uphold shackles could not be 
sung. An argument runs rapidly when it has 
but one side. 



101 

But who was present in those years when the 
young Queen Victoria was looking over a mighty 
empire which held no slave? What sensitive 
mind was studying and feeling all truths and 
sentiments in those days when the songs of free- 
dom were rolling over this republic as rolls the 
melody of the song birds of spring? Who was 
living his early thoughtful years when all the great 
principles taught by Washington and Jefferson 
were blossoming into sentiment and filling the 
whole air with a new perfume? The Lincoln 
child was born in February, 1809, and thus all that 
life lay in those years which had dismissed France 
and Voltaire, Thomas Paine and the Church, 
England and Europe, that the American public 
might see in all its details the cloud of negro 
bondage. Going to New Orleans with his flat- 
boat the young Lincoln saw the slave auction 
where mother and son were parted, and where a 
fair woman was sold like a dumb animal. His 
heart made a vow. 

Thus each age creates a form of manhood, and, 
as a group of noble men came up out of the 
eighteenth century, so another group was cre- 
ated in the nineteenth; the former were mighty 



102 

in. their battle for the white man, the latter, 
mighty in their battle for the race. O thou brief 
month in midwinter! For all thy days of phy- 
sical sorrow, days of suffering poor, of dark 
storm and drifting snow, Nature has given thee 
condensation in thy perpetual nearness to two 
names, the greatest in human history ! Thou 
dost not need leaves and blossoms for thy joy, 
for when thou wouldst think of things beauti- 
ful thou canst point to two men who are the 
eternal decorations of our fatherland! 

That was a singular association of names made 
recently by Mr. Ingersoll. He linked together in 
greatness Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. 
Never before did that orator utter such a strange 
sentiment unless it was when he said that Dante 
and Milton were not poets. Charles Darwin de- 
duced all animals from a primitive cell, and offers 
us a theory not valuable but curious. His teach- 
ings sustain no relations to church or state. They 
are so unimportant that few care whether they 
are true or false. So a naturalist discovered 
that the swallow spends its winter in the bottom 
of marshes and ponds. But he and Darwin can 
never be named along with the men who have 



103 

made a free nation for many millions, and who 
are sweetening the hearts and intellects of mill- 
ions of young men who are living their awakened 
life under freedom's flag. Darwin and the oys- 
ter! Lincoln and justice! The chief theme of 
these remarks is not Washington and Lincoln, but 
rather the spectacle of an age creating its master 
intellects. Each period loads its clouds until 
they move in a storm; it nourishes its blossom- 
buds until they burst. March, April, and May 
carry water and air and sunshine to the plant, 
until at last the passing school -girl shouts with 
joy, for the plant has bloomed. Later on the farm- 
er lifts his eyes and says : My wheat has come ! 
Thus we gaze at the ministry of the years and 
see the mind of the public yielding to the mighty 
powers of the air. When the school-girl plucks 
the wild -flower she is not a part of its cause. 
Nature would have made it had she never passed 
along that path; but when an age makes great 
characters, all youth, all girlhood, all woman- 
hood, all manhood, are melted to compose the new 
compound of greatness. Washington was the 
utterance of many millions of souls. Each woman 
who is thinking and acting nobly, each man who 



104 

is discarding all the vices and exalting all the 
virtues, is helping compose the omnipotence of his 
century. One noble man utters us all. He is 
the speaker of the age. 

The present Pope is perhaps the most wise and 
tolerant of all who have ever held the highest 
office of the Roman Church. Like Mr. Lincoln, 
he had to garner up the lessons of his time. Born 
in 1810, this Catholic lad, acute, sensitive, and 
moral, had to see all the followers and all the 
theories of myriads of Voltaires; his ears had to 
catch all that rationalism which issued from the 
French Revolution; he was in the midst of the 
political tumult which reached out twenty years 
from Mazziniof 1840 to Garibaldi of 1860; he saw 
the revolution of 1848; he lived on to see Victor 
Emanuel separate the old church from Italy; he 
saw stones and mud nuno; at the funeral cortege 
of Pius IX; he heard shouts of laughter rise 
above the solemn dirges chanted by the priests; 
he had long heard the eloquence of Cavour and 
Cast el ar, and had felt the breeze of liberty blow- 
ing from France, America, and England, and his 
heart must follow the law of nature and take the 
color of the adjacent world. His proud spirit 



105 

can not make a full surrender. It hates the new 
breadth of religion, but it flings out to science 
and to new customs many a kind word. 

A new century leaves us children little option. 
Its arms are strong; if we will not walk forward 
it carries us. Pope and king and queen, student, 
toiler, man, woman, all are carried by the tide of 
years. Of which sublime movement the explana- 
tion is that God is dwelling among His children. 
The Pope, Leo XIII, shrinks from the world-wide 
friendship demanded among the disciples of piety, 
but the touch of that friendship has fallen upon 
his heart and will fall there while he shall live, 
not only in a new Italy, but in the world's new 
civilization. 

In its power to make men, society can not go 
back and make again the shape of intellect it 
once fashioned for the public use. Neither the 
Romanism nor the Calvinism of the past can ever 
come back. Nothing that divides humanity into 
parcels, and which makes one group kill another 
group by God's altar can ever return. Exelusive- 
ness has died ; inclusiveness has come. The little 
Romanism, the little orthodoxy has been suc- 
ceeded by humanity. An acorn may turn into 



106 

an oak, but the oak can never go hack into the 
acorn. 

Naturalists and poets used to ask us to note 
that the evening clouds never repeated their mar- 
shaling and colorings in the west. The winds, 
the vapors, the temperature, the atmosphere, the 
sunshine can not all meet twice in one power, one 
bulk, and one quality. Thus the elements which 
made the old church and the great men of the 
past can never meet again in Italy, or France, or 
America. But the moral scene excels that of the 
sunset clouds, for the moral changes are all made 
in more and more of beauty. Old Romanism and 
old orthodoxy must die to make way for some 
more divine assembling of religion's beauty on 
the morning and evening sky. 

When one thinks of society as shaping a sensi- 
tive soul, one can not but pass from Leo XIII and 
Washington, and Lincoln, to him whom Pales- 
tine cradled and reared and crucified. Accord- 
ing to the sacred biography he grew as a human 
youth grows, but he surpasses all the names in 
history, because he drank in the highest truth of 
all times and all races. He was more universal 
and perpetual than the great moderns whom Ave 



107 

love. His laws were for the great kingdom of 
which Italy and America are only small states. 
Washington and Lincoln absorbed and expressed 
man's love of rights and liberty, but the greater 
one of Palestine, after expressing the most sweep- 
ing and delicate justice, uttered the world's feel- 
ings of piety and its hopes of a second life. To 
the nations of man He added that vast Father- 
land to which all earthly greatness moves with 
solemn steps. To him all the great statesmen 
and philanthropists look. He is the universal 
ideal and guide. These great names of February 
are the children of one continent, the leaders of 
one people, but the Nazarene surpasses them, for 
he leads all the multitudes of many periods, and 
was not the son of a nation, a state, but the Son 
of Man. 



Gbings ant) fIDen. 

What went ye out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken 
of the wind? A man clothed in soft raiment? — Matthew xi. 8. 

The Columbian Fair began in the contem- 
plation of physical things. The growth of man- 
ufacture, art, and science had for a century been 
so prodigious in quantity and quality that it 
seemed best to sum up all the fairs of counties 
and states and nations in some display for the 
world. The people of this continent, as often as 
they contemplated the many shapes of its arts, 
inventions and products, felt disposed to thank 
Columbus for having been so kind as to discover 
such a valuable piece of idle ground. By slow 
degrees this gratitude to Columbus spread, and 
instead of saying as is customary, " Let us build 
a statue of that navigator," it said: "Let us hold 
a gigantic fair in his memory." This was the 
sentiment which at last prevailed, and each day 
that now passes brings us nearer the opening of 
the gates and doors of that unusual exhibition. 
The present year itself is, in this continent at 
least, to be made memorable by the event. Our 



109 

century has seen many great years, and this one > 
differing from all in its color and essence, will 
take its place in the group of those destined to 
be historic. It will not be associated with any 
fields of battle, nor with the sad questions of dis- 
union and slavery; it will stand forth gay and 
brilliant, but valuable and impressive. 

The conception of the work was large in the 
outset, but not many months of public discussion 
had passed by before all first thoughts became 
inadequate, and grounds, buildings, contents, 
beauty and cost doubled the size in which they 
were first seen. Like the Fama of Virgil, they 
gained forces by going. " Viresque acquirit eundo" 

In the very outset all was materialistic, but 
the country had not thought long before it be- 
gan to say, "Let us have not only material things, 
but let us have also spiritual things. The age is 
not wholly composed of inventions and discov- 
eries, of pictures, statues, architecture, railways 
and electric lights and powers; it is composed in 
part of mental phenomena. Let us add these 
things to the Columbian memory." This idea ran 
swiftly, and now when the year is just opening 



110 

we see a picture never offered the world before 
— a fair to be held in the name of both dust and 
spirit. If a flower or a tree or a ship or a car 
is organized dust, then education, politics, social 
philosophy and religion are organized soul. We 
may well all rejoice that jewels and machines 
and robes of silk and velvet are to be here next 
summer, but we may also be glad that the hu- 
man soul is to be here — here in its science, its 
ethics, its eloquence, its education, its religion 
and philanthropy. All the material things will 
indeed be the work of the human mind. The 
strain engine, with its self-acting valves and with 
its enormous power, is only a form assumed by 
man's thought. Recently, when a ship-load of 
people found that in mid- ocean the shaft of the 
ship's great wheel had become shattered, they 
must have felt like children who had lost a 
father or a kind guardian. Out in the ocean in a 
floating palace ! but in the palace lay this dead 
giant whose power, ten thousand times greater than 
that of Hercules, had been day and night on their 
side. Thus all instruments and machines are in- 
carnations of man's mind; but, after these have 
all been seen and studied, there is much of mind 



Ill 

left, and man out of his machines is greater than 
man in them. Our age can construct a marvel- 
ous steam -engine of which Watt little dreamed, 
but the instrument would be of little v r alue had 
not man possessed great errands over land and 
sea. The rail -car is great in itself, but it is often 
made greater by the souls of the travelers. Men 
going upon great errands of mercy or justice or 
goodness confer honor upon the ship that bears 
them from shore to shore. When Franklin 
stepped upon the shores of France; when Lafay- 
ette stepped upon the shores of America, each 
man would have been greater than his ship had 
its hull been made of plates of pure gold. Thus, 
after the mind has invented and made all the 
buildings and the objects that shall be within 
the buildings, it will still contain within itself a 
great residue of beauty and power. 

One of the blessings of the year ought to be 
found in the fact that such a congress of nations 
ought to lead all minds to think the world's 
thoughts — thoughts good for the world and for 
all time. If literary men from all lands shall 
meet here, they ought to unite in demanding a 
universal purity of style and in making a cov- 



112 

enant to deal only in the most high and noble of 
truths. They should band together to make 
greater and greater the most powerful agent at 
work among men. All the arts are dwarfed 
by the power of literature. Each other art can 
express only some part of the mind— music a 
part, architecture a part, painting a part; but 
literature can express all the thoughts and emo- 
tions of the entire spirit. And this art one can 
carry with him when he travels, it can nourish 
in one little room, it depends not upon wealth 
or house or gallery, but where the mind has a 
common education, there this art can find its 
home. A poor girl's heart may be the gallery 
of this form of excellence. In one hand she 
may hold a volume which may contain more 
truth and beauty than can be found in any col- 
lection of art. 

If she may hold only some of the immortal 
books of the world, she has near her heart some- 
thing greater than all the canvases in the magnif- 
icent rooms of the Louvre. These books travel 
like wind and light. They do not wait for the 
poor boy to grow rich that he may make a long 
journey to them. They pity his poverty and go 



113 

to him. A few Looks went to the Lincoln lad 
in Kentucky and Indiana; a few volumes went 
to the young Henry Clay, a few to our Washing- 
ton when he was a lad; but when these books- 
went they carried the soul of the world, for lit- 
erature means the mind and heart of our race. 
Humanity thinks all the time. Thoughts are as 
countless as the grains of sand upon the shores 
of all oceans; but as, of those sands, only some 
of the grains are gold or sapphire or pearl, so 
of all the thoughts of all time, only a part are- 
rich in value and beauty. Literature is the final 
collection of these scattering jewels. Whether' 
gathered by Plato or Cicero, or by the Man of 
Nazareth, or by John Milton, they stand for all 
that is great and good in mankind. It is one of 
the greatest attributes of our earth that it scat- 
ters its greatest works with the most generous 
hand, and enters the door of the cabin and offers 
to the boy without coat or shoes the use and joy 
of the highest of all the arts. 

In the presence of such a full, powerful and 
wide- spread influence how can we avoid wishing 
that our coming congresses of scholars and stu- 
dents may vow to make literature cut loose from. 



114 

vulgarity once and forever? What the students 
of the world did in the recent exposition in Paris 
has had a marked effect, for it is now confessed 
that France is rapidly moving toward a literature 
which appeals to only the highest taste of the 
enlightened world. It ought to be easy for our 
literary congress to lend a new impulse to a char- 
iot which is already in motion. 

The reform of literature would imply a reform 
of the drama, for when the public learns to love 
one pure art it will ask that all kindred manifes- 
tations of the intellect shall be high in their 
style. The low drama, for many of the dramas 
are still disgraceful to all concerned, will never 
lack for friends in a nation which could praise a 
poet whose vulgarity was simply infinite. We 
must appeal to the congress of nations to aid us 
in the suppression of immoral books and in 
building up a new world of letters into which 
slang and vulgarity can not enter. The gates of 
literature should be, like those of heaven, made 
of pearl. The world from Germany to America 
is growing ready for such reform. May all the 
scholars and students who ever assemble vow to 
magnify literature — that art of all arts! 



115 

Our fathers in the church erred by their efforts 
to expel the drama and opera from the face of 
the earth. The tendency of their practice was 
to make the world a desert. They were deep and 
wide in their hates. The fiddle itself came in for 
a large share of their displeasure. Nearly all 
games were susjDected of wickedness. Assuming 
that the earth had been cursed by Adam, they 
were inclined to think that all the earth produced 
was full of depravity. Of course, the drama 
and opera, and the fiddle and the dance, were 
wicked, for otherwise the earth would not have 
produced them. All good came through the 
church; the earth was the kingdom of Satan. 
Such teachings were equivalent to a robbery, for 
thus was society to be robbed of many and beau- 
tiful goods. The old theory of total depravity 
has failed. The depravity was at least total in 
its failure. It remains now to assume that the 
earth is prolific in goodness and beauty, and that 
this beauty must be separated from deformity, 
just as literature must be rescued from the slums 
and the gutter. We do not wish to mow down 
the wide expanse of flowers under the pretense 
that they are weeds. The church said they are 



116 

all weeds and nettles. We have lived to know 
better. Our world is a rich valley, made by the 
Almighty to yield flowers, and we must help the 
Creator in his wish that the plant should blossom 
and the birds sing. 

There is one "hobby" which no age has yet 
ridden. The Greeks and Latins rode upon 
Pegasus, others rode upon the war-horse, the 
church made a hobby of its creed, many different 
times have mounted many different things ; but 
there is one idea to which society has never yet 
given its hand and heart, and that "hobby" is a 
beautiful decency. When language came to us 
from the sky, we were not satisfied till we had it 
filled with oaths and gibberish and slang; when 
art came, society said, " Let us make it indelicate ;" 
when literature came, great minds said, "Let us 
write its pages that all who read will blush for 
shame;" when the drama offered us the sublime 
pictures of human life, the play -makers said, "Let 
us make our plays and scenes infamous;" when 
the drama came in the name of the greatest song, 
then our leaders again said, " Let us invent an 
absurd and silly ballet and hang it like a hun- 
dred mill -stones on the neck of a divine music." 



117 

Thus our world has never made a hobby of honor 
in literature or art. But we may be on the evG 
of a great change. We may infer from the unrest 
of civilization that it has grown weary of the 
past. It has become convinced that the world 
was made for greatness, beauty, and goodness. 

In the moral department of the World's Fair 
the officers have invented the motto, "Not Things, 
but Men." This motto must have reference only 
to a division of labor-that some days will show us 
things, other days will show us men. The motto 
for the whole exposition may well be " Things 
and Men;" for we love to think of things as the 
products of man's genius and the servants of his 
wants. Nearly all things are the expression of 
man's power. The steamship is only a form 
assumed by Watt and Fulton. When the tele- 
graph speaks to us, it is Morse that speaks. Thus, 
things are men. Now the argument is this — that 
if man can pour his power into a steamship which 
will carry a thousand persons over an ocean, so 
this man, this thinker, this creator, can pour a 
similar power into religion, or politics, or art, or 
life, and make them all the most faithful servants 
of the race. Can not the congresses of men help 



118 

lift up a suffering world? If the genius of man 
can make things, can it not make men ? Sad day 
for us if we can build a beautiful house for men 
to live in, but can not fabricate a noble man ! 
Shall we tear down the house ? Oh, no ! Let us 
rebuild the occupant. The genius that fabricates 
an exposition can fabricate a society. - 

It is confessed now that the architectural scene 
on the fair grounds is perhaps the greatest the 
world has ever seen. We can not go back to 
Babylon to see how it looked in the day of its 
hanging gardens, nor to Carthage to mark its 
wonders in the time of Hannibal, but, compared 
with all existing emblems of the builder's art, 
this new picture is most impressive. It was cre- 
ated not by one city, but by the whole age, for 
ideas are there from the Greek, the Roman, the 
Gothic, and the Oriental lands. In that piece of 
ground the great builders, dead and living, all 
meet. Rome is there with her arches, Greece 
with her columns. But the inquiry which that 
enchanted field raises is this: Can not such an 
age build a wide and pure civilization ? Can not 
our times build up a richer spiritual realm ? Can 
not the assembled men bear witness against the 



119 

disgraceful passion of war ? Can they not make 
Reason and justice seem grander than battlefields? 
Can they not cover with perpetual infamy the day 
when one Frenchman and one German exulted in 
the slaughter of half a million of their brothers ? 
Can not the congress of moralists utter against the 
drinking habit some word which will encircle the 
world ? 

Shall such congresses of men leave to women 
alone the conflict with the greatest vice upon 
earth? The existing spectacle is singular at 
least — that of ten million women attempting to 
close the gates of death which ten million men 
help to keep open. The temperance reform may 
well remind us of that scene in the classic Inferno, 
where a man was doomed to make a rope of hay 
to reach to the outer world of light and liberty, 
but, while he was busy twisting his life-rope, a 
flock of wild asses stood behind a wall eating up 
the grassy string with a calm and perpetual de- 
light. Thus womanhood twists her temperance 
rope in vain. She will never find the longed-for 
light and liberty. There is too much consuming 
ability at the other end of the rope. It is to be 
believed that our ethical congresses will take 



120 

some action that may make the war against dis- 
tilled drinks the war of manhood and womanhood 
alike against a destructive vice. In the face of 
all the temperance work of the past few years 
Boston sent more rum to Africa in the past year 
than it has seut in any one season of recent times. 
With the Christians on the one side of Africa 
stealing men and women for slaves, and with 
Christians on the other side sending the negroes 
cargoes of rum, the scene is one worthy of the 
thought of a world's congress — worthy of its de- 
bate, its tears, its action. 

It is now true that the continent of Africa is 
to lie for eight days before a Columbian assembly 
next summer. The fact was made the theme of a 
pamphlet in November last. The essay was writ- 
ten by Mr. F. P. Noble, of the [Newberry Library 
of this city. In those eight days eminent men, 
from many parts of the world and from Africa 
itself, are to state all the sad and joyful facts in 
the great case, and are to outline some policy for 
civilization to adopt and pursue. Africa is three 
times as large as all of Europe, three times as 
large as our republic, it is one-fifth of all the land 
on the globe, and yet it has been the historic scene 



121 

of desolation, and the place whither the Chris- 
tians have repaired when they wished to contra- 
dict every teaching of their Divine Master. It has 
sustained two hundred millions of blacks whose 
ignorance made a market for rum, and whose pov- 
erty and docility made them valuable as slaves. Mr. 
Noble estimates that only one in two hundred ever 
met a Christian teacher acting as such in the name 
of God's love, but it needs no mathematical figur- 
ing to teach us that few of those millions are stran- 
gers to the white man as a bloody warrior and as 
an unfeeling thief. The slave trade and the rum 
trade have made all Africa fully aware of the 
existence of a white man's world in the North. 
They know it by our depravity. 

It is a blessed thought that this Africa is to lie 
in her mangled and bleeding form for eight days 
before the eyes of cultivated people convened 
from all parts of the enlightened land. There 
will be cheering facts to be set forth, facts which 
w^ill kindle pity into hope; and there will be 
plenty of that wisdom which can come from men 
who have lived in the land of which they will 
speak. We all want music to sound all through 
those summer months, and machinery to speak, 



122 

and art to speak, but do we not also wish for an 
Africa to stand forth and plead her cause with an 
eloquence born out of her centuries of bitterness \ 
Our rail -cars will seem greater if they are going 
to penetrate the Dark Continent, our telegraph 
will grow wonderful if it is thought of as holding 
Africa in its net-work and making noble words 
pass quickly to and fro in that area of prolific nature 
which reaches in length or breadth five thousand 
miles. And all music will sound nobler when it 
shall offer rest and peace to hearts that have been 
made tender by sympathy with the needs of our 
race. 

" Men and Things 1 ' make the best motto, but 
with the men exalting the things and the things 
empowering the men. 

The fine arts and music and literature, great 
as they are, are not the end and measure of human 
life. The fact that society lives by political truth, 
social truth, religious truth, and scientific truth, 
marks out for us the place for all the beautiful 
things. Were it not for music we should live a 
less happy life, but were it not for agriculture we 
should all die next summer. Painting is a 
delightful art, but were it not for political science 



123 

we should all be savages. Sometimes young 
people of an extreme style boast of taking no 
interest m the social sciences, they are so fond of 
music and society; but had not science come, 
their music would now be a tom-tom and their 
elite society a band of Digger Indians. It takes 
utility to make a world, and beauty to adorn it. 
Neither is utility the aim and measure of 
human life. To live for politics or agriculture 
or social science alone is to commit a sin against 
nature. This is to use only one half of the soul. 
If we are to plow a furrow to grow bread , we 
ask to be permitted while we plow to hear the 
morning bird and to see the blossoming orchard. 
The plowman is to be greater than his furrow. 
As the girl must be greater than her music,so the 
farmer must be greater than his plow. The girl 
must reach up her hand and touch the realm of 
utility ; and man must turn from his labor and 
visit the kingdom of beauty. To despise either 
social science or beautiful art is to pass through 
life with only one half of a soul. As the great 
Columbian buildings are made of iron and then 
adorned and shaped by art, they stand as the sym- 
bols of man's life, for it must possess both delicacy 



124 

and iron, plenty of high music and the iron of 
deep thought. As artists and art lovers the 
world's public may journey thither next summer; 
but the many ought to come hither as men, and 
be both the world's iron and the world's taste. 

Here, where common sense is to deal with pol- 
itics, with labor, with capital, with the pure in 
letters and art, it will make a review of religion. 
Would that such a congress could make religion 
simpler and ask the church to sum up Christian- 
ity in an imitation of Jesus Christ! The whole 
length and all the centuries of Christendom have 
been deeply injured by a religion of forms. The 
creed has always been greater than virtue. The 
Roman Catholic Church has groaned for cen- 
turies under a load of crime and vice; the Church 
of England was but little better. Dean Hole, of 
Rochester, England, wrote recently of days not 
far past when many an English rector lived far 
away from his parish and simply drew his living 
from the church rates paid by his neglected 
people; that one of those absent and fashionable 
pastors resolved at last to go and see his flock in 
some mild and gentle weather; but on the edge 
of the village he met a woman with a basket full 



125 

of such old, spoiled fish that the servant of God 
ordered his carriage to face about for home. In 
the meantime the Presbyterians drank heavily 
and waited for God to choose converts through 
the mysterious art of election. Such was the 
Christian church all through those years when 
a scheme of doctrine displaced a Christlike char- 
acter. If a congress of religions can do anything 
in favor of a simple imitation of Christ, they will 
change the whole quality of the world. Bishop 
Ireland would evidently welcome some reform 
that would prevent his foolish people from watch- 
ing for miracles on church windows, and should 
lead them to seek for pictures of Christ and 
angels in their hearts. The only miracle of any 
value to the church of to-morrow is a miracle of 
a righteous and benevolent life. Toward such a 
final miracle the Christian church is slowly turn- 
ing. May the congresses about to convene make 
the movement universal and rapid. 

Never before lay before our civilization ques- 
tions so many and so great. It seems that many 
of the largest themes of reflection waited for 
this period to arrive. The themes of poverty and 
riches, woman's mission, universal education, com- 



126 

inunion in its good sense, war or peace, pure or 
low art, temperance, government of cities, hnmane 
laws and religion, are all here waiting for a 
hearing in the high court. It is the greatness 
of the court that has evoked the high cases. 
This is the first century which has been bold 
enough and thoughtful enough to be worthy of 
presiding over debates which once would have 
been argued with blood and fire. 

Let us all listen to all the pleadings which 
gifted counselors can make. That was a much 
smaller day when the two Greek orators debated 
about the price of honor — a golden crown — for 
then the city of Athens lay in doubt between two 
kings; but now the whole of Christendom lies in 
doubt between religions worthless or divine, 
between acts low or pure, society trifling or great, 
between awful wars or sweet peace. 

What went ye out to the wilderness to see ? 
A reed whistling in the wind? Ah, no! We 
went to see the holy face of a prophet and to hear 
the last years of the nineteenth century pour out 
its many-voiced eloquence. 



Immorality 

My brethren, these things ought not so to be — James iii. 10. 

We need not attempt to find the origin of the 
feeling of obligation. All agree with the far- 
off Saint James that there are many things that 
ought not to be so, and there are many things 
that ought to be so. The ancient moralists used 
to Avonder whether this feeling of obligation 
came from the gods, or whether the gods were 
themselves bound by it. Differ, as many think- 
ers may, as to the origin and warrant of morality, 
morality itself is felt to be here and to be the 
hope and ornament of society. Cicero uttered re- 
grets that morality could not assume a personal 
form, and be visible to the eye. In his essay on 
ethics, he exclaims: "What affection would vir- 
tue call forth could she only become a visible per- 
sonage ! " He was, perhaps, thinking of the 
Camillas and Dianas who had been seen in wheat- 
field or forest; he also remembered the Venus 
who had often been visible in some form more 
beautiful than life. He lamented that the idea of 
morality could not sweep along before society, 

J27 



128 

and take away from all hearts all doubt as to the 
matchless beauty of her form and soul. Plato 
23receded the Roinan essayist in this wish, for he 
said: " Could this supreme wisdom be visible to 
the eye she would call forth a vehement affection 
by her charms." 

The term " morals " must signify that form of 
conduct which most regards all rights, and which 
leads each and all to the highest welfare. Many 
definitions might be given, of which each might be 
good and all imperfect. A convenient definition 
may be this — that morals are the best moral ways 
to the best ends. It is declared by many that 
perfect morals might be found and followed in a 
nation where there was no religion, in a nation 
which might have rejected the idea of a God; but 
such a proposition is rendered purely theoretical 
by the fact that no nation has existed without a 
religion. In those countries which have produced 
a few atheists the civilization has been made by 
the overwhelming majority. We have never 
seen in any land a public virtue that had never 
been touched by a religion. 

Men who may differ greatly over the tenets 
of Christianity and natural religion, all meet in 



120 

the department of morality. Morality is the hope 
of our race. To oppose virtue is to declare one- 
self a pirate, and is to merit a sentence of out- 
lawry. Morality is a word that stands for the 
common weal. It surpasses in significance the 
word "art 1 ' or "beauty" or "culture," because 
society might do without those blessings, but it 
can not exist without morality. 

An event occurred not long since which gave 
all local moralists a thrill of delight. Thought- 
ful men of name and fortune were asked to ex- 
press their views as to the merit of a fashionable 
park at which horse -racing for money was an an- 
nual and fashionable pleasure. It was an inspira- 
tion to hear from great capitalists and public,fash- 
ionable citizens a plain condemnation of all such 
forms of sport and gain. They lamented that their 
beautiful piece of ground had become disgraced by 
the gambler's art; they had ceased to visit the once 
pleasant resort; they would delight in the death 
of a " club " whose happiness and gains must 
come from such a degraded and degrading 
source. 

All these men had been in the world long 
enough to have their minds fully made up as to 



130 

what paths lead to the best ends. They had seen 
young men and young women, too, allured to 
ruin by the betting mania, and had reached the 
conclusion that a racing and betting park could 
not take any part in any of the games and pur- 
suits of a decent civilization. That part of our 
public which wishes well to humanity had not for 
years heard words that surpassed in truth and 
goodness these few sentences from our public 
men. 

Men, old and young, thrown into the betting- 
fever of this aristocratic race- course, soon went in 
their delirium to a field some miles away where a 
lot of innocent animals were whipped and spurred 
over frozen ground or through deep mud to grat- 
ify the passions of persons who had become at 
the same time insane and brutalized. When a 
Washington Park can live by gambling, it can 
count upon having plenty of more infamous 
parks as its degrading offspring. 

If such race-tracks constitute an immorality, 
all newspapers are immoral, so far as they adver- 
tise the disgraceful events. Every newspaper 
ought to be a moralist. It need not be a preacher 
of some dogma that may save a soul, but it ought 



131 

to be a preacher of all that will save humanity. 
As society asks for a pure art and a pure drama 
and a pure literature, so it demands a pure news- 
paper. The men who are capable of writing ed- 
itorials for great journals ought to be unwilling 
to join their essays to an advertisement for some 
coterie of infamous men and women. It ought to 
be unpleasant to a great writer when he has read 
over his own column on literature, or honor, or 
benevolence, or the progress of the age, to find 
some other column of his sheet all devoted to the 
advance of vice. 

A newspaper can not be divided into two 
parts — an editorial part and a business section. 
The proprietors can not be half villain and half 
saint. If there is any virtue on the editorial 
page, it must color the business section. In the 
dissolute years of the church, archbishops made 
a distinction between their conduct when in their 
robes and their conduct when in citizens' garb; 
but the thinking world soon abolished this divis- 
ion of the high official, and the whisky section 
of the archbishop was at last suppressed. So 
the modern editor can not fashion himself into 
hemispheres — an editorial page that resembles 



132 

the essays of Addison, and the business page that 
delights the gambling and fighting fraternity. A 
newspaper possesses just as definite a personage 
as belongs to a president or a bishop. No soul 
<2an make a moral distinction between its literary 
hours and its business hours. As the English 
bishop or rector can no longer appear in two 
roles, those of the prayer-book and the bottle, so all 
editors and proprietors and all men must live 
and act in only one part, that of morality. Life 
means morality. 

It should also be stated here that nothing 
immoral is business. Business implies an honor- 
able industry or trade. We do not reckon foot- 
pads and burglars among our business men. The 
maxim, " Business is business," is very much of 
a falsehood as it is used, for it means this: that 
an archbishop is an archbishop, even if he is 
drunk. Such a use of language our world has 
outgrown. The men who once used it will soon 
all be dead. 

If we interpret the word "immorality" as 
meaning that which always injures the body or 
the mind or both, then we have a field of thought 
quite distinct from that of orthodox Christianity, 



133 

and no one need fear that in giving his heart to 
morality he is supporting the church. 

Not a few men are afraid to be moralists for 
fear they may be mistaken for clergymen. Not 
long since a clergyman attempted to reason on 
our streets with an inebriated man, but the 
staggering gentleman said to the preacher: "I 
am not one of your white cravat fellows. I take 
whisky w^hen I please.' ' He was only one among 
millions who connect morality with some church 
creed; whereas morality belongs to the profound 
study and welfare of society. England sells to 
China each year sixty millions of dollars worth 
of opium. Such a transaction is simply immoral. 
There is nothing of virtue or honor in such sale 
of goods. As a result China has millions of 
men who are mental and physical ruins; but the 
scene has nothing to do with church or creed; it 
is simply a scene in the history of the human 
race. The man who can not separate morals 
from the church has an intellect not calculated 
to excite envy. Religion ought to make its votary 
a more ardent student and lover of morals, but 
the welfare of man ought to make morality an 
aim of being. 



134 

If we examine those laws which the Christian 
Church calls the laws of God, and which it al- 
leges were taught through inspired men, we find 
that they are taught also by human welfare. 
Thou shalt not kill, steal, lie, covet, are all laws 
of common human happiness. Thus when Christ 
says, " Blessed are the pure in heart; blessed the 
peacemakers," he is passing along among the 
people letting fall those benedictions which rea- 
son repeats in all her sober hours of reflection. 
Thus there is a morality upon which even the 
highest religion bases all its rules of conduct. 
Christ came not to invent or create a code of 
morals, but to teach and adorn the one universal 
and everlasting code. He said with others, but 
more eloquently than all others: " Oh, that vir- 
tue were a visible personage, that mankind might 
stand amazed and entranced at her beauty. " 

The unpopularity of the Sunday idea conies 
from the foolish sensibility of many about being 
imposed upon by the church. They fear it is the 
clergy that make whisky a forbidden drink. 
Thus many associate Sunday with the orthodox 
religion, while the real truth is, the abrogation of 
that day would be an act of immorality. And it 



135 

would be a more immoral act in our period than 
it was in past times, because our age is,beyond all 
ages, labor-ridden, care-ridden and gold-mad. 

AVe are indeed so gold-mad and pleasure-mad 
that we are often stone-blind to virtues and vices. 
We have come to a time when,instead of having 
our work lessened by machinery and inventions, 
we perceive that it is doubled. All our leisure 
hours are gone. In an inventory of our minds 
and hearts it is uncertain whether we should all 
be classified as fools or slaves. Our names are 
hidden away somewhere in the neighborhood of 
these two terms. If there is anything we need 
it is a Sunday of rest and reflection. On all the 
Saturdays of summer all shops, stores, offices, and 
factories should be closed at noon, as a confession 
that machines have lessened labor and that our 
nation is inhabited by men of thought and kind- 
ness. On each Saturday afternoon ail toilers 
should have the liberty of air and sunshine, play 
and beauty, and on Sunday they should taste 
again the sweetness of rest and peace. 

AVe should all entertain a high regard for 
steam engines, telegraphs and electric railways, 
but we should not permit our souls to be swin- 



136 

died by those elegant things. They must not 
come between us and our books, our churches, 
our homes, our benevolence, our friendships. If 
Sunday possesses a moral quality and contains 
something good for each soul upon earth, let us 
not sell out the day for so much gold. Let u& 
turn Saturday into a holiday and keep Sunday 
for rest and peace. It is highly immoral to ask 
what gate-money a Sunday would bring. 

Our city is not so glutted with goodness that 
it feels constrained to unload. Our nation at 
large has no ideas to sell. It would much better 
enter the market as a purchaser. And if what 
we want is gate-money, we would better buy all 
the Saturdays of next summer ; for our Sunday of 
peace and rest may be more beautiful and more 
noble than the Columbian Exhibition itself. 
Among the articles of exhibition next summer we 
ought to point the world to a Western civiliza- 
tion. Our fame as a howling bedlam is complete. 
Our fame as a noble home for morality and cult- 
ure is yet to be won. The opportunity is near. 
That fame might be secured in the space of one 
rich summer-time. Saturday is the day we want 
for the pleasure and profit of all the laboring 



137 

classes of the coming days. Let us even enter 
our sweat-shops and set free our slaves. 

Let us return to the general study of immo- 
rality. A French thinker and writer has pub- 
lished a little volume upon a form of vice little 
discussed. Moses passed the vice by when he 
made the decalogue, and Plato and Cicero over- 
looked this shape of public injury. The name of 
this evil is luxury. The first Latin writer who 
made a paragraph out of this sin came in the last 
days of the empire, and said over a dead friend : 
u Thou wast never betrayed by that sweet curse 
called luxury. With a pleasing face that enemy 
surrounds body and mind with a cloud, and 
weakens man with drugs more powerful than the 
poison of Circe." It is singular that no one can 
define the term. 

This Frenchman says: "Luxury is something 
that costs much and is of no value." "Man does 
not need it." But it is not necessary to define 
the word. The fact is here, that there is some 
power or passion sweeping over our country and 
touching millions who once lived in simplicity 
and under divine law. One of our states is 
attempting to pass an act to suppress the manu- 



138 

facture and use of a kind of poison smoked by 
young men. Not only does the article cost much 
and contain no value, but it carries an injury. 
But it would take many laws, indeed, were the 
State to attempt to turn the money of the work- 
ingmen and of the upper classes along channels 
of lasting value. Perhaps one -fourth of the earn- 
ings of the laboring man goes in the direction 
of some curse, as the Latin says, " some sweet 
curse." Many laborers confess that their drinks 
cost thirty cents a day, while many men of small sal- 
ary and small means spend two hundred dollars a 
year on the luxury of smoke. Great sarcasm is 
hurled by the poor laborer at the rich man who 
buys a costly diamond for wife or daughter; but 
the poor laborer who is so sarcastic, instead of 
buying a diamond for ornament and investment, 
buys one hundred dollars' worth of beer each 
year, thus robbing self and wife and daughter; 
for beer is nothing but a dead loss to the con- 
sumer, even when it is not an injury. 

When we pass from the malt to the distilled 
drinks, the havoc caused by luxury becomes im- 
measurable. All the folly of earth diminishes 
when compared to this attachment to drink. The 



139 

opium habit in China is a small local disease 
when compared with this epidemic. People are 
now won d ering whether cholera will come next 
summer. Whisky has come. The cholera makes its 
call once in about eighteen years, and slays a multi - 
tude. Whisky comes every day in every year, and 
by its ravages makes the epidemic from Asia a mere 
weakling. Englishmen spend five hundred mill- 
ion dollars a year in drinks; Americans certainly 
not less. And yet the laboring men, who help 
make this evil, will complain at the human race 
for having diamonds and carriages. The cholera 
is a mystery of the air; drink is one of man's own 
home-made luxuries. The savages got along quite 
well when their luxuries were feathers, beads, 
paint, and great feasts of corn bread and venison, but 
when the white man's luxury came to them they 
staggered and fell. Wonderful invention of the 
white man — a drink that will quickly turn a 
statesman or an Indian into an idiot! These 
drinkers will laugh at the Roman Emperor who 
was so sensual as to make a dinner of birds 1 
tongues, and will then draw a bottle from their 
pocket and take a drink. It need not require 
much reflection to decide whether the Roman or 
the modern were the greater fool. 



140 

Luxury as a general rule is the displacement 
of real life. It does not tell us where man and 
woman are, but rather it points out the place 
where they used to be ; or it suggests by sorrow- 
ful contrast the moral beauty which they might 
have reached. As some of the savage tribes in 
Africa ornament their women with rings and 
accouterments until the decorated beings can not 
walk or even stand, thus in civilized lands luxury 
points out not life's triumph, but the place where 
it sunk. Luxury is not the throne of manhood 
or womanhood, but its grave. As men who are 
to run a race, or to engage in the physical arena, 
dare eat and drink only in simplicity, as the 
college athletic clubs must live near to nature's 
simplest lines, as great singers will not ruin their 
voices by gluttony, as orators must live simply 
when they are to make a great argument, thus all 
the forms and hours of human life must look to 
simplicity for its triumph and to luxury for its 
defeat. How often, in the street or in society, do 
we meet the early ruins of both forms of beauty, 
that of the body and that of the soul! They 
touched modern luxury and sank. 

In the long history of man there have come at 
regular intervals tears of both religion and phi- 



141 

losophy over the ruins made by this immorality. 
Socrates in his simple garb was a protest against 
the age which at last put him to death. Christ 
is the most sublime and thrilling protest the earth 
ever had or saw. His gospel was that of a life, 
simple on its physical side, but on its mental side 
rich to a divine magnificence. At regular inter- 
vals society has become so besotted with its vices 
that loud and hot protests have come as though 
even the stones must speak. 

It comes to memory now that an early Chris- 
tian, Lactantius, published in the fourth century 
a letter which he pretended a Hebrew patriarch 
had written before the time of Moses. These are 
a few of its words: "I know, my children, that in 
the latter times you will forsake simplicity and will 
cleave unto money, and leaving innocence you will 
cleave unto guile. * * * I am one hundred and 
twenty years old, and have never drunk any wine, 
to be led astray thereby; I have never longed for 
anything that was my neighbor's. When men 
have wept, I have wept with them. I never have 
eaten alone. I have shared my bread with the 
poor. True simplicity broodeth not over gold; 
it defrauds not a neighbor; it does not long for 



142 

manifold dainties for the table ; it does not delight 
in varied apparel. 11 Thus runs this long letter, 
and whether it came down from the old Hebrews 
or was written by Lactantius, it points out fully 
one-half the wrongs and sorrows of our century. 
Our times must face this old fact; give an age 
money and the age will sink in luxury. Such a 
charge should soon cease to be true. If intelli- 
gence and true taste are being amassed rapidly, 
these new giants ought to filter the immorality 
out of society and make all its pursuits noble and 
all its pleasures high and everlasting. Taste and 
money ought to border all our old race-tracks 
with a tropical wealth of trees and flowers. Make 
the boughs of trees meet over them. Make the 
noble animals march in a floral cavalcade, and 
charge us all for seeing such a splendor of nature. 
Let gambling die, let beauty live! Long, long 
ago all this weak immorality ought to have been 
in its grave, and true Beauty on her throne. Why 
do we so long and patiently labor to make our 
world too vile to be man's home ? One sentence 
is distinctly audible : it is full time for immorality 
to cease its ravages. This sentence comes not 
from the church, but from the millions of human 



143 

hearts that ache and bleed. We put in the bal- 
ances against all immoralities the hot tears of our 
race. 

Such is that argument which society here in 
this world weaves against all harmful vice. But 
not even the deist or atheist ought to complain if 
the Christian adds to this argument drawn from 
society that additional influence or persuasion 
that comes from the teachings and sentiments of 
a high religion. It will not take away from the 
repulsiveness of immorality if, in addition to the 
hate cherished toward it by good men, it is 
thought that there is a God who hates it. It 
will not harm the law of simplicity and honor if 
besides issuing from the welfare of our race it 
comes also from God's central throne. Can it be 
blamed upon the religious man that he fights sin 
too earnestly? Is it a reproach to John the Bap- 
tist that he preached too loud against the Herods 
of his day? Is it a reproach to Jesus that he 
made his faith an inspiration against all w^rong 
and a motive of goodness ? Is it a reproach to 
Xavier that he sailed upon seas too rough and to 
help men too savage ? Is it a reproach to Mar- 
quette that he taught men who were too red and 



144 

passed his winter in snows too deep? The irre- 
ligious man who sees the awful depths of vice in 
city and town must look only in admiration upon 
those who make the belief in God and immortality 
an inspiration to labor and die in behalf of our 
race. The church admits that the laws of society 
are found in society itself, but it claims the right 
to think of God as the maker of society and as 
the Being, faith in whom will make social laws 
all shine as though written in letters of gold. 
The moral men of this world only ought to con- 
fess the assistance they receive from the minds 
that believe in a life to come. When the atheists 
of America perceive the vices which ought to be 
checked, and the millions of men who ought to be 
lifted to a higher character, they may well wel- 
come the help of those who feel that humanity 
did not come from dust but from a God. Each 
moral atheist ought to welcome the assistance of 
a man who believes in heaven. 

The more divine society is, the greater are the 
laws which encompass it. Honesty, simplicity, 
kindness are noble even if they sprang from the 
realm of only earth, air, water,and heat, but they 
are nobler if they be also the voice of a Supreme 



145 

Mi lid, just as the nightingale would sing more 
sweetly to us if we knew that God put the song 
in its heart. 

It is not only true that the heavens declare the 
glory of God, but it is also true that God enhances 
the glory of the heavens. It is this dream of the 
worshiper that makes the distances of the stars 
so appalling and the whole mystery so profound. 
The star -depths speak out in sublime poetry when 
man makes them a part of a creator's empire. The 
stars sing to us: 

"A million torches kindled by God's hand 

Wander unwearied through the blue abyss; 
They own God's power, they move at His command, 

All gay with life and eloquent with bliss. 
What shall we call them ? Piles of crystal light ? 

A glorious company of golden streams? 
Lamps of celestial ether burning bright ? 

Suns lighting systems with their happy beams T 
But God to these is as the noon to night. " 

This Deity which so ennobles the heavens, 
ennobles also the moral laws which encompass 
mankind. They seem no longer the relations of 
dust to dust but the advice of an infinite friend, 
the conclusions reached by the Supreme Wisdom, 
the sweetly -rolling eloquence of the sky. An 
economist may teach us law, but Jesus Christ 



146 

makes the law beautiful. He loves it, he weeps 
over it, he dies for it. Reason can teach, but 
religion can inspire. 

It is the new glory of the modern church that 
it has begun to assail immorality. It has grown 
weary of seeing a beautiful world trampled down 
by a degraded manhood; it beholds for the first 
time the length and depth of a needless desecra- 
tion; it hears the Supreme Judge say to the 
Christian: " If you will make this world beauti- 
ful I will take care of your immortality." In a 
few years more the church will deeply love the 
laws of this terrestrial kingdom, and, dying in a 
redeemed and adorned earth, will be ready to pass 
with joy through the gates which open into a 
world free from all immorality and adorned by 
countless virtues. 



Devotion anb Work, 

I must work the works of him that sent me. — John ix. 4. 
I passed along and observed the objects of your worship. — 
Acts ii. 23. 

Man is the only animal whose condition is 
dependent npon work. All creatures must in- 
deed seek food, but we can not designate the lion 
or the bird or fish as a working animal. The 
relations of man to work are without any paral- 
lel. Man and work are inseparable. When an 
individual passes along from infancy without 
meeting anywhere a task to be performed, that 
individual dies young or makes a most wretched 
career for both his mind and his body. 

When the Creator gave man a growing, infi- 
nite nature, He annexed to the gift an endless 
amount of industry, because this expansive mind 
could not reach any of its desires without work- 
ing for them. If this gifted creature longed for 
music, it had to work for it, and the man who 
would be a musician had to work like a farmer 
or a carpenter. If the heart longed for skill in 
any language or art or science, it had to pass over 
the field of toil. The Latins discovered this pe- 

147 



148 

culiarity of man's life and summed up the fact in 
their popular sentence that: No excellence is pos- 
sible without labor. Plautus says: "Success is 
like the meat in a nut, surrounded by the hard 
shell of labor." Terence says: "Industry will 
give man what he seeks." 

The vast number of things wanted by the 
world shows how universal and varied must be 
the public industry. As civilization grows, the 
human wants increase, and, therefore, there must 
be a growth of labor with each growth of the 
public culture. If the mind can secure some 
assistance from instruments and machines, it may 
do so, but there must always be a growing indus- 
try of the mind itself, which no machine can ever 
supplant. The inventions and discoveries made 
by Fulton and Morse did not leave those men 
idle afterward, nor generate leisure ; they changed 
only some of the forms of work. The machines 
of England have not created any new leisure for 
either the statesman or the poet or the average 
citizen, for the civilization which brought the new 
machines brought a new activity of the mind 
and heart. The telegraph and railway have not 
made Mr. Gladstone a man of more leisure. Man 



149 

and work are inseparable, and the more he en- 
larges his world, the more quickly will he have to 
take steps in its confines. The only problem is to 
find exactly the quantity of work that shall be 
most in harmony with the perfect health of mind 
and body. Each art, each science, each emotion 
of benevolence, each new friendship means an ad- 
dition to the work of the age. 

When you hear that some man becomes at- 
tached to trees or dogs or flowers or music, you 
must give him credit for industry, for no lazy man 
ever formed an attachment. An indolent mind 
can not form a friendship for trees, plants, or 
music, or nature, because a friendship implies ac- 
tion. An attachment means work. It makes 
the work sweet, indeed; but the Creator, when 
He ordered man to be a toiling animal, ordered 
the toil to be a source of happiness. Labor is 
much sweeter than idleness. 

When one states that man was made for work, 
there should be made also the companion state- 
ment that work is a great, uniform source of 
happiness. To see a farm assume beauty under 
one's care, to behold a statue assuming elegant 
shape, to see a temple or a home rising according 



150 

to one's plans, to see a rose blooming which 
one has planted and cared for, to see a fire burn 
brightly which we have bnilt, to have the people 
applaud our music — all these ends are ordered by 
Him who ordered the days of labor and solici- 
tude. With most minds their work is their in- 
spiration. When work is painful to body and 
soul, then despotism and cruelty have displaced 
nature. When young children work in the shops, 
and when men and women work like whipped 
slaves, and for a few pennies a day, then God's 
laws are as far away as they were from the bloody 
ships of Captain Kidd. We do not call the 
career of Captain Kidd "mercantile life." 

So the toil of that woman who sung Hood's 
"Song of the Shirt" did not fall under the head 
of human industry, but rather must it take its 
place among the results of the world's crime. 
When one would make up an estimate of indus- 
try one must assume that the toiler enjoys the 
air, the light, the food, the clothing, the rest and 
sleep demanded by the man, woman or child. When 
a woman works fifteen hours a day for ten or twelve 
cents, we must not call that labor. It must be 
alluded to as torture, and in history must be 



151 

written down in the story of the inquisition. As 
Kidd was not a merchant, but a pirate, so much 
of industry is not labor — it is martyrdom. 

Away from the wrongs of an age, labor is 
one of the glorious things of our world. Man's 
mind is dormant until he goes to work. When 
the lawyer, or statesman, or writer, or thinker, or 
artist of any rank or pay gets once fully at work, 
then does his mind come to him, his sleep and 
clouds vanish, and his life's flood sets in. An 
idle, lazy person has no brains; for sleepy brains 
are not a positive quality. In the new science 
and art of electricity the workmen recognize 
two kinds of wires — the live wire and the dead 
wire. The men are very careful when they 
have to work around a live wire. In the realm 
of mind these two terms may well be used. 

The idle, lazy brain is a dead wire. As a 
promoter of sleep it has no equal. It was diffi- 
cult in his late years to arouse Mr. Webster; but, 
could he by some means be once awakened, then 
all his deep insight, his grasp, his language, came 
back to him, and for an hour or a half day he 
and those who were listening to the orations 
were all in the world of intense and happy life. 



152 

When Theodore Parker uttered his funeral ora- 
tion over the dead Webster, no listener moved in 
his seat or became tired or restless in the two 
and a quarter hours. The work of thought made 
life and made happiness, and changed the two 
hours into a time of blessedness. 

Thus work is not simply a doing, it is also a 
being. It is an awakening. When Sir John 
Lubbock was traveling among the South Sea 
natives,he found them so averse to any kind of 
action that they did not love to talk upon new 
subjects. They had been asleep so many genera- 
tions that the idea of a new truth became painful 
to them. Lubbock's happiness was their mis- 
ery. They were dead men. Work, thus, is 
not a source of income only, but it is also an 
arousing of the soul. Often when the reader 
closes his book after having read for an hour in a 
great work, the question, What has he learned? 
is not half so valuable as the question, What 
has he been? He has been a live wire for the 
time. His language, his wit, his pathos, his rea- 
son, his virtues, have all been back and at home 
in his soul, and he can say to the book; " I thank 
thee for an hour of life." 



153 

It is rather strange that, when the curious are 
going among the world in search of the reason 
why so few persons attend church, they should 
omit one cause, like that of the South Seas — the 
indolence which can not endure the idea of hear- 
ing or doing anything. There are, indeed, many 
good and bad reasons for the absence of many 
from the world's church, but the enumeration of 
causes will not be complete until we have in- 
cluded that mental indolence which does not want 
to encounter any person or any thing or any 
idea or any music or any motion of any form 
whatever — an indolence which hates, not only a 
sermon, but everything except a full supply of 
nonentity. There are times when many a laborer, 
of high or low grade, needs an absolute isola- 
tion from all activity, but, after all these deduc- 
tions have been made, one must still confess the 
existence of a multitude who are absent from 
everything, because of an absolute torpidity of 
spirit. The thought of any form of action is 
oppressive. The church is only one of the suf- 
ferers. These Asiatic souls could not water a 
dying rose bush, nor throw out crumbs to a 
sparrow. 



154 

Our country has pushed work forward as a 
revenue, but not as a happiness. When society 
shall think of work as a mental awakening, as 
an inspiration, we shall at once have a better 
world. 

In that golden age, men and women will 
engage in great works, because such tasks will 
bring the greatest happiness. When we make 
out a role of amusements, such as drama, opera, 
concerts, dinners, games, visiting and travel, we 
should not end the catalogue without adding 
the word "work; " for only recall for a moment 
the happiness man extracts from his pursuit. 
If the conditions of civilization were what they 
should be, there would not be an adult mind 
living, that was not in love with some form 
of industry, and there would not be a black- 
smith, who would not laugh at times over his 
anvil, and not a farmer, who would not hum a 
tune along his rich furrow. 

The perpetual satirists of modern womanhood 
make daily flings at its fondness for lunches, par- 
ties, lectures, readings and literary clubs; but these 
critics ought to confess the promise and virtue in 
a social world, which has ceased to extract happi- 



155 

BBSS from sleep and an endless nothingness. 
Given a womanhood fully awake, and the transi- 
tion becomes easy from ordinary aims to aims 
much nobler. A heart once alive can move from 
sphere to sphere. The modern womanhood can 
in an instant show power as the world needs. 
We are happy in the thought that it lives. 

In speaking of the nobleness of work, John 
Ruskin said, years ago, that a part of the beauty 
of a column, or a statue, or a picture, is found in 
our admiration of the quantity of work which it 
contains. " The column of the Apprentice," 
which attracts so many visitors to Rosslyn's 
Chapel, of Scotland, is made admirable by the 
quantity and detail of the carving. 

It is as rich in work as the book of Dante or 
the book of Milton. The column holds up a vast 
number of thoughts and emotions and would 
seem erected in memory of labor. A theory of 
Mr. Ruskin long ago was that no painter should 
ever throw in a foreground or a background care- 
lessly. If his purpose is to paint a ship on the sea, 
the artist must paint the pebbles on the shore just 
as perfectly as he must paint the ship. Nothing in 
any part of the canvas must be slighted. Wherever 



156 

the eye falls it must see the beauty of labor. It 
must see that man, the thinker, actor and lover, 
has been in each inch of the painting. Work is 
the utterance of the soul. 

If we ponder a moment, we shall conclude that 
Mr. Ruskin spoke truly and that his principle is 
of universal application. We love to hear a 
speech all full of thought and truth, and to read 
a poem whose thoughts, words and rhythm have 
all come through the shop of the finisher. When 
we read the " Elegy" of Gray, or the " In Memor- 
iam" or " Virgil," we feel that here some work- 
man has toiled over his task and has turned 
mixed and crude ore into pure gold. A stack of 
last year's straw is not so delightful as the reapers 
at work in a new field of waving wheat. 

We all, indeed, live in a working age, but this 
industry is poured out too exclusively upon one 
subject — the making and securing of property. 
Young men hasten through college, skipping over 
great books and great years, that they may the 
sooner reach the busy scenes around money. It 
is a sad blunder to hasten by the lands where the 
Greeks and Romans exhausted centuries of work 
upon language, sentiment, eloquence, and all 



157 

beauty; sad to dash by these charms, that we may 
get to the market-place the sooner. Work is not 
only an accumulation of money, it is also a being. 
It is a color of the human soul. 

Our energetic city has suddenly come upon a 
form of its weakness; its energy is all in one 
direction. It can pursue business, but it can not 
govern and adorn itself. It can not execute a 
law. It can not clean a street or superintend a 
contract, because there are no minds or hearts 
that are running in those directions. The gen- 
eral industry is all towards the affairs of the 
individual. But the streets would all fall under 
the general law of Mr. Ruskin, and can be made 
more beautiful only by an enormous quantity of 
labor and devotion. The homes of this city are 
neat and beautiful, because each home comes un- 
der the care of some personal soul; but all that 
part of the city which is public catches no love 
or care from anybody. It is more friendless than 
the old blind horse turned out to die on the com- 
mons, for the humane society will carry that 
horse a bucket of water and a bundle of hay; 
but as for the city, it has not even the humane 
society for its friend. 



158 

It is a neglected orphan, deaf, dumb, blind, 
and poor. If fault-finding could save it, we cler- 
gymen could make it a New Jerusalem in two 
days; if resolutions could make the place beauti- 
ful, the woman's movement last summer would 
have made untidiness a matter of history. What 
the city needs is some men who have the disposi- 
tion and the power to be its friends. Somebody 
must come with love, to make the foreground and 
the background, and to reveal painstaking work. 
As the picture, the statue, the book, the poem, 
are made by work, so the city must be made by 
devotion. To ask our city to be anything, under 
the existing apathy, is like asking a Virginia 
contraband to take a whitewash brush and repro- 
duce " The Angelus." 

It is in vain to double our taxes. Money will 
not make a beautiful city. Three hundred mil- 
lion dollars were spent on the name of - Pani ~ua," 
but there is no canal. New York City is in debt 
a hundred millions, but its condition is little bet- 
ter than our own. The power of money depends 
upon the men who direct the money. Can money 
paint a picture? No, but a gifted soul may. 
Can money write a poem? No, but a Milton 



159 

can. Can money clean a city? No, but a Gen- 
eral Butler can beautify a New Orleans, and a 
Baron Haussman can create for France a new 
Paris. Haussman was to Paris, what Angelo 
was to sculpture, and what Homer was to poetry. 
Whenever Haussman flung the people's money, 
beauty grew up where the coins fell; and now, 
France has a city, because it was able to produce 
a soul. 

All of our cities are about alike in weakness 
and repulsiveness. This city equals any in 
merit. The theory of each is bad. The rulers 
of a city should be composed of men who can 
make deformity turn into beanty, and weakness 
turn into power. Millionaires having reached 
the fixed limit of five or ten millions should then 
become the creator of the city or the State. 
Their minds and gains should go toward some- 
thing greater than a private fortune. How ab- 
surd it is to elect a saloon-keeper or saloon 
loafer to help govern a city! Why did we 
select a great art lover to collect and arrange 
our pictures for the World's Fair? Had we no 
chimney-sweep whom we could have employed? 
Why put educated ladies on the Woman's 



160 

Columbian Board? Could not an employment 
office have furnished a group of girls? When a 
city shall conclude that, like a piece of art, it 
needs skill, industry and love, then will it begin 
to meet the ends of its being. 

Some of the States are drafting laws by which 
they may secure a part of the millions which 
the richest citizens leave behind when they die. 
But who is to spend this enormous income from 
great estates? Unhappy millionaires, if at death 
a part of their gold is to pass into the hands 
of a city council! The truth is, what a city 
needs generally is the help of the powerful man 
long before he dies. The men who are endowing 
our university with libraries, telescopes, laborato- 
ries, are as powerful in their mind and taste as 
they are in their gold. The services of these men 
are as valuable as their money. When the peo- 
ple of Paris found out the merit of Baron Hauss- 
man,they said: "If he will make a new city we 
will give him the gold;" and a new $50,000,000 
was subscribed toward the great reconstruction. 

Thus all over this planet, and in all its ages, 
the law of devotion and intelligent labor has held 
its sway. No person and no State has ever been 



161 

able to escape the grasp of this law. Its meshes 
seem like silk, but they are iron. Nature scorns 
and punishes all apathy. Nothing has ever come 
by way of indifference, and so old is the world 
now that we may assume that no good will ever 
come by that gate. It is indeed not a gate by 
which man comes, it is rather a swamp, a marsh, 
where he sinks. 

Would that the heavy veil of nature could be 
lifted that we might all see the eternal Father at 
his work! Could such a vision be granted us, 
we should see an infinite Mind acting into all space, 
slighting nothing, but devoted and potent where 
an ocean rolled or a lily bloomed. In the absence 
of such a face-to-face interview we have to speak 
of the power of the sun and tell each other how 
its heat made the forests which, waving in the 
air a million years ago, are now seen crushed 
into beds of coal, and how that heat made all 
that life and verdure which bedeck our globe 
to-day. But the sun explains nothing. It sim- 
ply tells us that there is a mind somewhere which 
is making the universe burst forth into beauty and 
tremble into life. Could we look back of the 
ocean, we should see some hand holding it; could 



162 

we gaze back of the coming cloud, we should see 
some loving heart pouring out great streams of 
color in the west. Sublime and mysterious as 
the universe is, one fact is clear — it is at work 
under the loving care of somebody. There is 
some angel painting the apple blossoms, and there 
is some angel carrying perfume to the rose. The 
man or woman who is indifferent is already dead. 
Nature hates such a loveless heart. 

As man must bring his wisdom and devotion 
to bear upon his city, state and home, so must he- 
bring it to bear upon his religion. The religion 
which prevailed five hundred years ago may not 
be noble enough to meet the need of the races 
which now live. Our times are restudying all 
the Christian and moral problems. It may be 
the past did not bring out fully the morality and 
philanthropy of Jesus Christ. It may not have 
seen clearly the relations of religion to common 
conduct. It may hare thought the earth to be 
under a curse, as were the companions of Ulysses 
in the Island of Circe. We know that each new 
era is born to a new industry and a new affection, 
and that the passing religion must catch some- 
thing of this new toil. As man must send art 



163 

onward more perfect than lie fonnd it, so must 
each epoch send religion onward in garments more 
beautiful than those in which it came. Man's 
labors will never end, not only because the tasks 
are each infinite, but also because labor is always 
an awakening of life. Labor is the hand which 
strikes the strings of the mental harp. Devotion 
is only another name for life. It is the tie that 
binds man to his calling. It is the chain of gold 
that bound Newton to the stars, the chain which 
bound Washington and Lincoln to our Republic. 
The relations of all young minds to their 
life should be those of laborious devotion. It 
should be deeply felt that the sweep of years is 
the arena of a care and a labor that shall make 
the natural marble show its tints, and the crude 
gold its purity. Intemperance, the race-track, and 
each form of vice and dishonor, must be discarded 
as simply a quick ruin; and then one's language, 
one's taste, education, breadth, depth, kindness, 
and religion must be made the objects, of an un- 
changing regard. Nothing equals life in the 
power to absorb work and devotion. It absorbs 
all and destroys nothing. The soul catches all 
this attention, and runs with it out into this world 



164 

and into immortality. Whoever cares little how 
he lives is already lost. 

This is the birthday of an American, who, 
when a boy, began to lavish care and labor npon 
his visit to this world. Born in a mental desert 
he began to reach out like a palm tree toward 
riches, soil, and springs of water. We can now 
look back and mark his devotions. He worshiped 
his handful of books; he paid homage to all the 
greatness which had gone before him; he made 
reasoning an amusement and a pursuit; each year 
which brought new blossoms brought him a new 
survey of his world; each yellow autumn added 
to his pensiveness, each spring reawakened his 
hope; the time which slowly changed lonely for- 
ests into populous states, changed his young 
thoughts into great principles, and by the day 
when middle life had come, he stood up encom- 
passed by doctrines of right and humanity which 
the world now sees were divine. 

He attempted to mingle reason, sentiment, honor, 
justice, love and happiness, not only in his own 
spirit, but in the heart of the world ; and seldom 
in human history have so many strings of the 
soul sounded in such perfect harmony. Never, 



165 

perhaps, was a better manhood created out of 
such unpromising material; but this man cared 
for his life ; and, as the great pictures of art carry 
the labor of the artist, as the column in Rosslyn 
Chapel arose, carved in all its extent by loving 
care, this man carried with him to a noble grave 
all the rich mental details which could be worked 
out in a single lifetime. 

There is one kind of selfishness that is admi- 
rable. It is not, indeed, a selfishness, but rather 
it is a kindness to the race — that self-love which 
leads the mind to take care of all its faculties and 
its liberties. This care is not an egotism, it is 
only a confession that the world and its God are 
great. When man says, "Let me see the flowers, 
let me hear the music," his heart is full,not of 
himself, but of the universe. All this self- 
development is a worship of the empire which 
encompasses the spirit. All egotism is thus dis- 
placed by the presence of the infinite. 

This long argument over work, care and devotion 
leads to a conclusion which carries us beyond the 
boundary of time. If man is ordered by his 
Maker to pour out care day by day, and if he 
makes and occupies his years with such devotion, 



166 

it follows that He who made man is also pouring 
out upon his empire an attention, a love, a thought, 
that are infinite; and that, if not in these years, 
then beyond the grave, all the eyes of mortals 
that close here will open again upon a human 
family all worked up into a perfect finish and 
inwrought with the many images of all virtue and 
all happiness. 



TRaJucalism— Uoot anb Brancb, 

For behold the day cometh; it burneth as a furnace, and all 
the proud and all that work wickedness shall be stubble; the day 
cometh that shall burn them up ; that shall leave them neither root 
nor branch.— Malachi iv. 1. 

In one of the reading books which lay in 
many homes and cabins when our century was 
young there was a thrilling story called " The 
Eising of the Waters." A Canadian gentleman 
had built a little board hut on the upper bank of 
a river. It was to be the home of himself and 
two little sons while some workmen were survey- 
ing some forests and were felling some trees. 
At daybreak on a summer morning a rain began 
to fall. For a time it was a pleasant sight. The 
pattering on the board roof was good music to 
be heard. As the puddles began to form, the 
delight of the boys grew steadily. When, hour 
after hour, the darkness and downpouring in- 
creased, and awful lightning and thunder began 
to play a frightful part in the growing tempest, 
the boys grew silent and hid themselves under 
the cloak of their father. To this alarming 
gloom night set in and its terrors, and, fed by a 
thousand hill -torrents, the river began to roar 

167 



168 

and to carry whole trees along as though in wrath. 
Toward morning the woodmen had to leave all 
their huts and betake themselves to the hills. 
This piece of prose, equal in power to Hugo's 
chapter on the battle of Waterloo, was called 
" The Rising of the Waters," and often it comes 
bach to the memory of those who mark the slow 
rise and advance of reform. First come a few 
rain-drops, and after long time the skies grow 
darker and the flood begins to roar. 

The certainty of ultimate victory keeps most 
great hearts from despair. They do not expect 
all things to act at once on the line of their wish. 
They are capable of grasping long periods, and 
of picturing a future, few of whose beauties have 
yet come. It is probable most great reformers 
have been men of powerful imagination, not of 
that imagination which composes poems and 
romances, but which can detect a great moral 
landscape lying beyond the actual scenes of 
to-day. We have no right to assume that the 
poetic faculty can do nothing but make verses or 
assist in art. It is needed in the daily life of 
the citizen, for it draws for him an outline of the 
rewards and works to which his labors are bear- 



169 

ing Lis heart. Poetry is only one of the forms 
assumed by this mental quality. It has a wider 
office — that of creator and guardian of man's 
life and man's world. It is necessary for the av- 
erage man and woman to be hopeful, and to plant 
their hopes upon the gradual advance of intelli- 
gence and goodness. 

It is said that our Legislature is drafting and 
reading a law to limit horse-racing and betting 
to sixty days in the year, and those must be days 
in the summer. We do not dare laugh at a group 
of philosophers who look upon gambling as a 
wrong so great that it ought to prevail only a 
part of the year, and then only in the summer- 
time. Instead of laughing at the Legislature we 
may well rejoice that the feeling against the old 
popular vice has grown so large as to become vis- 
ible — so large as to extend its goodness toward 
some months of the twelve. 

In the Mosaic laws a man was not to be 
whipped beyond forty stripes. The mercy of 
that period lay in limiting the blows which might 
be inflicted. Many died from the effect of the 
forty blows, but more would die if the flogging 
champions could keep up the lashing indefinitely. 



170 

A few centuries afterward, when Paul was living, 
he was beaten with forty stripes save one. Mercy 
had given the lash another backset. It had to 
cnt the flesh only thirty -nine times at one whip- 
ping. But there was no law to prevent Paul 
from being lashed five times. Thus creeps the 
progress of an age; and,if our philosophers per- 
mit gambling to reign and ruin for only two 
months of the year, we must " thank God and 
take courage." The prize-fight has been forbid- 
den in all the States where intelligence has 
reached any degree of popularity. 

It is a blessed day in morals when men make 
a beginning toward the study of a wrong. It is 
the first suspicion that is so difficult. In 1700, Sir 
Thomas Brown, M. D., discussed the question 
whether the Englishman should get drunk once 
a month. He gathered up the data with all the 
patience of an astronomer. He thought the nau- 
sea of drunkenness a medicine equal to calomel 
in virtue. 

It was difficult for slavery to make its first 
appearance as a violation of rights. It was seen 
as a great convenience to the white man, then as a 
necessary result of climate and race; then it turned 



171 

into a missionary movement, and, at last, into a 
fraud. The rising of the waters became at last 
deeply impressive, and the slave-holders waded 
out. 

One of our excellent local clergymen preached 
recently against such an amusement as shooting 
birds for a prize. All would have been well had 
not the clergyman entered into a sweet defense of 
the gentlemanly hunters who bring down a few 
birds for table use. He rejoiced in the sport of dog 
and gun. The sermon showed how difficult it is 
for a moral principle to make a start. The 
pigeons which fall at the shooting matches are all 
sold for the table. It remains for the pulpit to 
prove that to shoot a bird out in the weeds and 
pond lilies is any nobler than to rob it of life 
within the limits of a city. 

Thus morality crawls along like a wounded 
snake, and reduces the stripes inflicted upon the 
birds from forty to thirty- nine. But morality 
advances, although at a snail's gait. The pulpit 
of Christ must stand upon the truth formulated 
not long since, that " the death of an animal may 
be a necessity, but it can never be an amusement." 
With this sentiment in the public soul, all slaugh- 



172 

fcering of birds and game will be left to those men 
who are not touched by any tenderness of heart. 
As the whole thirty-nine stripes have passed away 
from the shoulders of our negroes, and from what 
Saint Pauls we possess, so the day is sure to come 
when the gun will give no pleasure to a true 
gentleman, and he would sicken at the thought of 
killing the dove which stands as an emblem of 
the soul, and of bagging the quail which sung 
" Bob White" in the harvest field of last summer. 
These remarks are not those of fault finding. 
We all are, or all have been, in the same old bloody 
happiness. We all used to shoot, but we should 
all in our later years make a new survey of our 
old morals, and should gladly eliminate any lurk- 
ing remnant of the old savagery. If there are men 
who have not yet reached any kindness of nature, 
men who can kill a deer or a fawn or a dove as 
cheerfully as they would pick up a ripe apple 
from the ground, let those men do the killing for 
the length and breadth of the land. It is high 
time for you all to go up a step higher in your forms 
of pleasure. Heliogabalus ate a plateful of night- 
ingale tongues. The birds were slaughtered 
that he might show Rome how great a king he 



173 

was ; that his divine body was superior to all those 
little angels which in Italy made the plaintive 
midnight music. Would you not all have said: 
Let those birds live and sing in the hedge ; bring 
me on a plate some bread and honey from the 
fields of Virgil, some ripe figs from the gardens 
of the Caesars. 

In the long course of events it will come to 
pass that there will be no insensate men to act as 
butchers for the world. What then ? With the 
coming of that day the eating of meat will also 
cease. With many thousands in our land already 
that form of food has lost its charm. As the last 
thousand years have wrought great changes in 
man's thoughts and being, so the years to come 
will bring, changes greater still, and it is almost 
certain that the far-off tables will groan with all 
the riches of the orchard and the fields. In the 
golden age man will eat amid breads, fruits, music 
and flowers. The dove, the quail, the nightin- 
gale will not be there in death to mar man's 
sweetness of life. 

Much as we admire the modern human race, 
we can not but perceive that man stands here 
to-day much encumbered with his inheritance. 



174 

He eats meat because such was the practice of 
his more savage ancestors. Education is not 
good only as a means of learning the branches 
called reading, writing and arithmetic. One of 
its greatest forms of usefulness lies in the fact 
that it helps us escape from our ancestors. It is 
well, indeed, that we had ancestors, and one may 
recall with gratitude the art and literature and 
law that came down from antiquity; but this 
gratitude need not make us forget that we in- 
herited egotism from the classics, pugilism froin 
the Spartans, murder and war from the Saxon, 
mendacity from the Arabs, and business habits 
from the Pirates. It is one of the holy offices 
of education to pass the modern mind through 
a fire which may burn out this old dross and 
send man onward in a greater purity. 

And some one will say: Did not the God of 
nature command the animals to feed upon each 
other? The lion kills the do^; the do^ the rab- 
bit. Yes, but the answer is: Man was not 
made to be a brute. His problem is to nud how 
far he can drift away from the brute forms of 
life. An ancient discovered that the spirit of 
the brute tendeth downward, while the spirit of 



175 

man tendeth upward. Man must not rely upon 
the brute world for his lessons in virtue. He 
must look into his own soul and evolve his career 
from his own time and divinity. 

The last charge against these humane and 
spiritual ideas is that this teaching is all poetry. 
The charge is true. It is all poetry from first to 
last. But this also is true: Our world is founded 
upon poetry. The globe itself floats in a sea of 
ether. As it turns over, on one side it sparkles 
like a crystal ball, on the other side it is dark in 
shadow. On the brilliant side men work, on its 
darkened side men sleep. While the ball rolls 
it passes under the poetic sun, and asks that orb 
to make for it a poetic spring, summer and 
autumn. Out of this request came the forest, 
the fields, the grains, and the fruits; and, after 
years have passed by in this excess of beauty, 
man appears in these woods and fields and adds 
to the sublime aggregation that awful and rich 
mystery of life which no science can describe and 
no history contain. Out of the beautiful woods 
and mountains of Judea comes a Christ, chanting 
a group of beatitudes which surpassed in sweet- 
ness all previous eloquence and song. All poetry, 



176 

indeed! but the quick impulse to a new civili- 
zation. Ah, poetic world! thy light is composed 
of a thousand colors, thy scenes are all a mys- 
tery, thy sounds are all music. Touch thee 
where man may,his eyes are full of wonder, and 
the greatest truth seems only the greatest dream. 
The poet Statius, whom Dante so loved, at- 
tempted to describe only one little fact of the 
human career, and he stood amazed by one sim- 
ple phenomenon — that of sleep. He says: "Sleep 
is a hidden grotto in a dense woods. Man passes 
into it. Motionless figures stand all around his 
couch. The silent clouds envelop it and keep 
away the roaring of the sea. The angel of 
silence goes about with folded wings and forbids 
the winds to move the branches rudely. She 
forbids the foliage to rustle. She softens the 
distant thunder. The mountain streams all move 
more silently. The god of sleep is in the bower. 
One hand is under the hair of his left temple, 
the right hand falls and lets go the horn which 
it held in the long day." Poetry! Of course; 
our world is all composed of poetry, and the 
words " benevolence," "civilization," "education," 
are only the names given to man's best pictures 



177 

and his grandest song. Poetry is not the over- 
statement of the truth, it is the effort of the soul 
to reach the reality. The crossing of the Dela- 
ware by Washington, the inauguration of Lincoln, 
are scenes as poetic as any in the works of Milton 
or Shakespeare. Into much more of such poetry 
our world is hastening. It is carrying us all 
with it in its grand flight. Manhood and poetry 
are one and the same. 

Radicalism is the final philosophy into which 
we must all empty our hearts. The word is de- 
rived from the Latin term for the root of a plant 
or tree. The farmer and gardener know that of 
many noxious plants it is a waste of labor simply 
to mow off the tops. They must be taken out 
by the roots. This is radicalism. A legislature 
may temporize and may take away one stripe and 
leave thirty-nine to cut into the shoulders of a saint, 
or it may make a part of the year free from the 
gambler's art; but the individual citizen need not 
wear a legislature about his neck, nor a city 
council. Burdened by such mill-stones he can 
not do otherwise than sink. He must within his 
own soul be a radical and make his whole year 
poetic. He must follow a divine dream all day 



178 

and all night. It is ranch to man's honor to be 
up with his age, but it is more to his fame to be in 
advance of it. To be behind the age is infamous. 
That is the perfection of barbarism. If our State 
feels that gambling ought to cease a part of the 
year, it is well to keep up with the State; to fall 
below such a State would be a moral calamity. 
In going below the State one might find himself 
in an unhappy country. 

In our age and in all times the most beautiful 
of all things is the individual. Our age ought to 
excel the entire past in the creation of the noble 
individual. Education, climate, industry, and 
freedom are his to be used and enjoyed. He 
need not wear any chain upon his spirit, except 
that gold fetter which God fastens to every wrist. 
We may be, indeed, helped by a party in politics, 
or by a church in religion, but we must not be 
fettered by such organisms. It used to be said 
that a party has no soul. Each party has a soul, 
but that soul is not as sensitive and noble as that 
heart possible to the individual. The soul of a 
party is always diluted in intellect and sentiment. 
In forming our government there was a difficulty 
in finding any principles that would suit the 



179 

whole thirteen colonies. It was easy to find the 
great soul of a Washington or a John Adams, but 
it was difficult to find the soul of the whole thir- 
teen colonies from Boston to Charleston and 
Richmond. When a half -score of artists differ 
as to the color which should cover a wall or a 
ceiling, at last they all agree on a tint. Thus all 
the old parties, unable to be adorned by a com- 
plete soul, are often seen to wear a mental tint. 
In the great Middle States when the hard maple 
trees had not fallen victims to the all- destroying 
ax, the farmer and his sons were wont to count 
much on the sugar and nectar they would extract 
from the trees in the days between winter and 
spring. But often when the bright sunny morn- 
ing had contributed a pint of sweet sap to each 
crock and trough and bucket, a shower of rain 
would fall and fill the vessels to the brim. With 
sad faces the family would go out after the shower 
to taste the contents of the trough or bucket, to 
learn whether they would better attempt to boil 
down the compound or throw it all out. Thus 
the little soul a party possesses soon becomes so 
weakened by successive dilutions that the whole 
compound should be emptied out. The attenu- 



180 

ation has become infinite. The individual must 
make his escape and study truth once more in 
root and branch. 

The one great hope of our times lies in the 
advance of the individual. These isolated minds 
are unencumbered; they are so light-armed that 
they can soonest reach a height. On a certain 
night in Greek history it was necessary for the 
army in a hostile land to pass through a long 
ravine. Woe to the troops if the enemy should 
be on the crags above! The Greek captain sent 
far in advance some of the light- armed soldiers, 
and these had soon preoccupied all those heights. 
Thus in our day of trial and great danger there 
must spring forward the unencumbered indi- 
viduals who can outrun the heavy crowd and hold 
all the moral heights. 

After these advanced individuals have multi- 
plied in number and have grown in courage, they 
create a new party in Church or State. The 
party will, in morals, be less, indeed, than they, 
but its merit will be of a deeper tint. Having 
issued from many individuals of marked good, 
the new party will be like a national currency 
from which the state has taken away more of 



181 

rags and silver and into which it has poured more 
of gold. Thus each free and lofty individual is 
the poem of his day; not running in advance of 
its truth, but only in advance of its stupor and 
its vice. Being free of foot, he has outrun his 
creeping race. The individual must wear but 
loosely all party ties. It is said that many men 
drink because they dislike to be so unsocial as to 
decline to touch glasses with a friend. Singular 
age, in which a man will become a drunkard by 
general request! Often a political party is only 
a request which has become so swollen with office 
conceit and vice that it orders the weak minds 
around like a heartless tyrant. It charms like a 
serpent; "it stings at last like an adder. n 
Against it the isolated individuals must arise as 
against a foe to all that is good upon earth. 

All good begins in some one individual. Many 
persons were wont to gaze at the stars, but forth 
came the one Galileo. Each cause, each science, 
each reform, starts in some solitude, and then 
gradually expands toward society. Galileo must 
have been thankful for his first friend. Over his 
grave now the human race bows in friendship. 
Thus individualism is the fountain of the river. 



182 

Radicalism is the gate through which the indi- 
viduals all come. In its good meaning it is 
infinite goodness and happiness — the place where 
wrongs are torn out by the roots. It is the line ' 
where earth joins Paradise. 

One cause of our city's unrest lies in the fact 
that so many individuals have been reared who 
can now feel deeply its vices and follies. Thus 
far the children of degradation and wrong can 
outvote the men of the new era. Not a few 
whose minds and hearts are in the new, are 
standing with their feet mired in the political 
mud of the past. There are thousands of others 
whose virtues are not a positive color, only a tint. 
We must wait until the individuals shall have 
become more numerous and more intense. The 
radicals must never be disheartened,, for if they 
can not shape the world external they can enjoy 
that world that is in their own thought and prac- 
tice. If the individual can not close the saloons, 
he can have the happiness of saying: "I do not 
drink. " If the law permits thirty-nine stripes,he 
can say: " I abolish them all, both as to man and 
beast." Thus, while the world is creeping toward a 
better condition, the individual can fly to it on 
dove's wings. TThile the church is full of false 



183 

doctrines, he can, simply by shutting his eyes in 
some solitude, be instantly with God; and while 
the earth, all in all, is black with its vices, he can 
breathe the aroma of the better land. Inasmuch 
as the individual, having only a few years, can 
not wait for the world to become humane and 
just, he must adorn his own days with those vir- 
tues, and thus create his own beautiful civiliza- 
tion, just as the traveler at twilight enjoys his 
own song. As the world will not die with you, 
it must not live with you. It moves too slowly; 
you must hasten, for your time is short. You 
are light armed. You can climb the mountain 
and see the morning while the valley is still dark. 
The Christian Church is fortunate in the fact 
that it stands attached to a person whose radical- 
ism attacks vice and wrong in root and branch. 
In Jesus of Nazareth all wrong dies and all love 
lives. In him tears cease. There politics turns 
into poetry, as life turns into immortality. But 
the Church could carry only a little of him, 
because a party can not carry a deeply- colored 
virtue, but only a tint. But there stands the 
Christ perpetually, and the society which once 
came from him, bringing thirty-nine stripes, soon 
went back to him, and returned with thirty-eight. 



184 

Thus it went and came, until the stripes were all 
gone from Paul's shoulders. It came away from 
the Master once with a contempt for the black 
man. It kept going and coming until the black 
man was free. It once was but a little kind to 
the children; it went back to its origin until at 
last it took all the little children into its arms and 
joined the Master in the words, "of such is the 
kingdom of heaven." Thus, under the repeated 
touches of Nazareth all poisonous plants die, root 
and branch. 

This moral scene resembles that story about 
the "rising of the waters," only it reverses the 
feelings of the heart. In that night in old Canada 
the waters silently rose to man's alarm and danger, 
but in civilization this flood rises to man's joy. 
All good and true hearts exult in the long moral 
storm. As we lie on our pillow at night, Ave wish 
the rain drops would grow in size and number. 
The fainting heart needs the help of the tempest. 
The river which creeps onward hour by hour is 
the stream of human happiness. The lightning 
is welcome, the rolling thunder is music. The 
father and the two sons need not fly in terror from 
these waters. All human feet should hasten to 
touch this healing, peaceful wave. 



"£be<5entleman of tbe 1Rew Scbool, 
IRutberforo B. Ibasea." 

The wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, 
gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without 
changes and without hypocrisy. — James iii. 17. 

The gentleman of the old school no longer 
proves satisfactory; his place will soon be filled 
by a man of the new school. The word " gentle" 
has added much to its import since it came into 
duty in the Latin times. The word gcntilis then 
stood for the best kind of manhood of that period, 
but then the best manhood was often very 
poor. In almost all times and places before the 
Unites States came into being the most of oppor- 
tunity for education, culture, and politeness lay in 
the family. The family implied the school -house, 
the best manners, and the highest religion. All 
the commonest people and the enormous multitude 
of slaves were outside of refining influences. To 
belong to a gens, a group of families, was to have 
more advantages than a slave could enjoy. To 
be attached to the family of Abraham, Isaac, or 
Jacob, was in the old Hebrew world more than 
equal to having in our day a diploma from Oxford 

185 



186 

or Cambridge. So in the Latin times it was a 
great advantage to be born a member of some 
Tarquinia gens or Claudia gens, or Julia gens. It 
was much like saying in our day, u He is an 
alumnus of Yale or Princeton." 

Such membership in early or late times has 
never made the worth of the members absolutely 
certain, but it has always made it probable that 
the person thus related was superior to the 
wild man of the woods. Cicero defined the 
gentilis man as "one belonging to a family 
which had never been in slavery, and which 
had received no injury from its remote ancestry. 1 ' 
The presumption followed that education and 
good manners had run along in the channel in 
which the family had flowed. 

The family power and fame reached a won- 
derful dominance in the Roman period, and it 
reappeared in Europe after the disintegration of 
the Roman Empire. All the old castles in Eu- 
rope and England tell us how the family or the 
gens went onward, carrying what there was of 
literature, education, reason, and good manners. 
The massive walls, the moat, the drawbridge, 
bear witness to the efforts of old ancestors to 



187 

escape overthrow and subjection. In Dante's 
day this war of families was still raging, and 
was busy in making war, confiscating old castles 
and ordering enemies into exile. A gens man 
in those years was not much, like the gentle- 
man of modern times, for the world has since 
become spiritualized, and now the gentleman 
has actually the many virtues in the large which 
once were admired even in the small. In Eng- 
land the word remains much as it stood in the 
times of Cicero, and a drunkard or a glutton or 
a gambler may be a gentleman, because he may 
be a member of a high gens, and not be a man 
whose ancestors lived by hard toil or were men 
of the woods or slaves of a lord. 

In our republic the term has been spiritual- 
ized, and now the word gentleman means one 
who acts as though his family had been noble 
for a thousand years; he acts as though long 
time had emptied its experience and goodness 
into his heart. He is the son of many a noble 
race which has acted nobly. As Jesus was called 
the Son of Man because he stood for the ideal 
youth of our world, a son because he held the 
power, the enthusiasm, the righteousness, the 



188 

kindness, which attach to the ideal manhood, so 
the modern gentleman is that ideal soul which 
seems in Caesar's day to have absorbed all the 
good from the Julia gens, and from the Fabia 
gens of earlier days, and to have stolen rich 
colors from the Capulets and Durantes which 
gave the world its Dante, and to have passed 
through the castles of Germany and England 
only to extract the virtues which bloomed within 
those walls. He did not pause amid those high 
opportunities that he might emerge a rake or an 
idler, great in the fox chase and in vice, but that 
he might gather up all the qualities which make 
a perpetual goodness and a perpetual beauty. Of 
such souls our age can now show a large number, 
because a republic is a field favorable for their 
growth. An enlightened republic is a kind of 
nation favorable to the production of gentlemen. 
But it must also be said that the Western mon- 
archies have become so similar to republics that 
they, too, can grow a kind of soul not easily 
possible in the older times. 

A republic is made the better soil for this 
form of manhood, because no soul can be ideal 
unless it grasps the rights of all humanity.. 



189 

Many of the so-named gentlemen of the old 
school were such only by comparison. They 
showed a little white, but only on a very black 
background. When the wife had to keep silent, 
and at times was the recipient of a blow or a 
kick, when a serf was soundly flogged at the 
caprice of the master, when war was a regular 
pursuit, then the term gentleman possessed no 
deep spiritual import, for that import is impossi- 
ble where there is no tender appreciation of 
human rights. Cicero loved his daughter ten- 
derly, but his wife had no rights that he felt 
bound to respect. Dante was an intense friend 
to his friends, but he was bitter toward political 
opponents. Shakespeare gathered up all kinds 
of conspicuous personages which had run across 
the world between Caesar and Henry VIII, but 
he did not make the perfect gentleman conspicu- 
ous in his drama. Shakespeare was a central 
point in which all paths met, and if the path of 
gentility is not seen on this Shakespearean map it 
is because it had not yet been opened up through 
the woods. In those plays the perfect gentleman 
was almost as rare as was a steamboat upon the 
Thames. 



190 

The human race has been unfortunate, not 
only in its efforts to create a noble manhood, but 
also in its efforts to keep what it has gained. 

By the time the Greeks have reached some 
moral worth, like that found in the characters 
of the Platonic school, the Persians are seen on 
the border, ready to trample the Greek flowers 
under foot; by the time Rome has become able 
to point to a Pliny and a Tacitus, the northern 
barbarians are beginning to move soutlrward to 
trample all the Latin pearls into the mire. In the 
meantime the savages are overthrowing in Britain 
the civilization begun by the enlightened Julius 
Caesar. Not only was the progress of the higher 
manhood arrested, but the old grand languages 
were broken up into wretched dialects, which had 
to be made into the new tongues or jargons which 
are now spoken in Europe. To find a good has 
been in all times difficult, to retain a good, a task 
equally arduous. 

The coming of the actual manhood could not 
but wait for the advent of human rights. There 
must always be a wide intelligence before there 
can be a noble character. The mind must be 
able to make a survey of the world, and see the 



191 

whole net- work of human rights. It is not essen- 
tial that a gentleman be a good judge of art and 
music. He may be color-blind, and in an art 
gallery mistake "The Autumn on the Hudson" 
for "The Springtime in England; 11 he may be 
tone-deaf and not know " Home, Sweet Home," 
from the "Marseillaise," but his intelligence of 
men must be broad, and his feelings kind in an 
infinite degree. 

The present Emperor of Russia is, perhaps, a 
sincere man, but his sincerity does not aid him in 
this contest for the fame of gentility. He ha& 
not moved in the high families of the human 
race and garnered up the splendors of the widely 
scattered genies. He has not come through all 
the Athenses and Florences and Londons and 
Americas. He came to his throne by way of 
fanaticism. He felt called by God. He perse- 
cuted Baptists, Catholics, Stundists, and Jews, 
because God wishes them put out of the way of 
the true church. It is said that he did not wish 
to be Emperor. He lamented that he had to be 
Emperor. He would have declined the crown 
had not his spiritual advisers made him believe 
that God had called him to take tender care of 



192 

the Greek Church. Out of this one mental cloud 
come all the cruelties which so disgrace the Rus- 
sian dominions. Alexander III thus stands not 
a gentleman loved the world over, but a character 
torn and shattered like a tree riven by lightning. 
He wants to be a noble man, but no wide study 
of human rights draws for him an ideal; the 
path thitherward does not run near his palace. 

If we compare with that King of the North 
the ex-President who, a few days ago, passed from 
this country, we shall see at once how the teach- 
ings of our land help the mind toward an actual 
gentility. To a taste for all art, all education, 
Mr. Hayes added a most delicate sense of human 
rights. Intelligence as to where justice lay, and 
then a tender love for that justice, helped him to 
reach long ago the spiritual import of the word 
gentility. When a perfumed air drifts over a 
southern road along which the traveler rides at 
nightfall, he does not know from what special 
flowers the odor comes. It may be many a variety 
of flowers has combined with the grasses and with 
the forests of gloomy pines in making the over- 
hanging world all fragrant. It may be the far- 
off ocean poured the first ingredient into the cup, 



193 

and then passed the compound onward to receive 
other forms of sweetness from all the scattered 
chemists of Nature. Thus in the formation of a 
heart like that of Mr. Hayes many elements were 
poured in by many hands. We can not name 
them, nor count them, but chief among these 
fashioners of the soul must be reckoned that jus- 
tice which does the right by each form of life. 

Without this sensibility of rights, the true gen- 
tleman is impossible. Calvin may have desired 
to do his duty; such may have been the wish of 
many a Roman Catholic persecutor; such may be 
the wish of Alexander III, but all these desires 
are inadequate. Gentility comes, not when a man 
desires to do his duty, but when he also knows 
what his duty is. It is a beautiful combination 
of intellect and heart. 

No sooner had ex-President Hayes died than 
Southern men met in council and hastened to con- 
fess that the ruler of the North had always done 
the best possible by the men and the homes of 
the South. He had not only cherished good de- 
sires, but he had so studied the world, so thought, 
that his desires were not made bloody by fanati- 
cism, but they were made beautiful by intelli- 
gence. 



194 

As soon as this citizen had been relieved from 
his duties as President, he accepted places of duty, 
but only of that duty which pertained to the bet- 
terment of human conditions. Great educational 
movements and great humane movements called 
him to new tasks, and he always accepted the 
calls. His life began well; it continued as it be- 
gan; it ran evenly to the end. It was free from 
fanaticism, from indifference; free from the ego- 
tism which loses the public in the universe of one^ 
self; full of sympathy with the many-sided prog- 
ress of mankind. 

An approach to such a character has always 
been possible, but it was easy for John Milton 
and Lord Bacon and Shakespeare to come short 
of it, because they were encompassed by all the 
hardness of a despotism. An enlightened repub- 
lic makes the character more attainable, because 
a republic is founded upon the nobility of man, 
woman and child. In this republic there is im- 
mense respect shown to woman, because that 
study of rights which has been preserved here 
for a hundred years has created a taste for all 
the equities of social life. It would be a misfort- 
une if study could develop a taste for literature 



195 

and pictures and music, and could not enlarge 
the taste for the equities of society. That cen- 
tury which has led our people along in many of 
the common forms of taste has led them forward 
in their sense of human rights, and has turned 
many a man from the pain of being an animal 
into the happiness of being a gentleman. 

And beyond a doubt the same republic, work- 
ing in its second century, will create an army of 
gentlemen greater than all the standing armies of 
Europe. In that far-off day when these charac- 
ters shall throng the Legislatures and fill Presi- 
dential chairs and assemble in Parliaments and sit 
down upon thrones, the standing armies of the 
world will be dissolved. 

When we were all young and at school the 
dear teachers were wont to tell us that a gentle- 
man was a youth or a man who walked softly 
and who shut a door without making a noise. He 
was gentle like a dove. The inference drawn 
was in favor of a nature not very far removed 
from ordinary stupidity. The definition was true 
as far as it went, but it did not go very far — not 
more than one step in the long way of man's be- 
ing. Man's footstep on a floor is of no conse- 



196 

quence when compared with his footsteps among- 
men. If the Russian Czar wo nld only walk softly 
among the rights of the Jews and Stundists; if he- 
would only not shut all the doors of liberty and 
hope, what a gentle soul he would indeed become! 
Gentle! not like a harmless dove, which can wing 
the air like an arrow, but gentle like an intellect 
which has flown through all the great homes of 
earth and has extracted from all the great fam- 
ilies their wisdom and their goodness. 

All terms are elastic. The word Christian is 
often used to distinguish an Englishman from a 
Mohammedan or an American from a Turk, but 
the word Christian is not thus exhausted. It 
moves on until it may describe for us the fervor 
of John Bunyan or the peace of Mine. Guyon. 

So the word scholar may apply to a hundred 
shades of attainment between that of a common 
schoolmaster and that of the two Scaligers. 
When the younger Scaliger was only eighteen he 
knew several languages, and was soon called " The 
Colossus of Learning. 1 ' Thus all great terms 
will hold little or will hold much. As the Nile 
river runs low or runs high, so great words run 
feebly or run full. Among these terms which 



197 

are subject to such vicissitudes must be placed 
the word " gentleman," it being, indeed, appli- 
cable when a man speaks in a low tone and 
respects the laws of the drawing-room and all 
social laws, and applicable also when a mind 
studies the happiness of mankind, and when the 
heart feels as though it were a loving mother of 
the human race. If we ponder over things, we 
can not but conclude that the Nile of gentility 
has not enjoyed its great June rise, that flood 
which shall pour untold wealth into the valley of 
mankind. We hope the rain is now falling in 
the mountains which will make this rich inunda- 
tion. 

Our Western race seems to have come to an 
era of enlarged terms. All the cardinal nouns 
and verbs of our language are swelling like the 
lily-buds in spring. 

The word "liberty" has opened so as to admit 
all complexions and conditions; the word "relig- 
ion" has expanded so as to admit millions once 
shut out from the arena of love; "power" has 
expanded so as to add the steamships to the oar 
of the galley slave; the word "benevolence" has 
expanded until it implies good will everywhere 



198 

and forever. Into this transmuting and purifying 
age the word " gentleman " has been tossed, and 
soon it will not mean a man who could ride well 
after the hounds in old Virginia or in merry- 
England, or could write a love letter in the style 
of Addison or Cicero, nor will it stand for a 
modern graduate who can handle an oar or a bat 
like a Greek athlete, but it will burst its old con- 
fines and mean a perfect body occupied in each 
drop of blood by a great and beautiful intellect. 
Is this to expect too much of our race ? The drift 
of all things compels us to see a great future for 
man. The advent and reign of a new manhood 
is not only possible, but it is near. 

Whoever recalls the whole life of ex -President 
Hayes, sees the lad in his first years, sees him at col- 
lege, sees him on the banks of the Ohio in schools 
of the law, sees him afterward at home, as perfect 
there as any domestic picture earth can show, sees 
him in power and afterward in private lif e,can not 
but feel that it is not difficult to be a gentleman. 

It is only to run in one of those ways of wis- 
dom which are full of pleasantries and peace. 
Our literature helps point out the new path, our 
art helps, our religion helps with its tender love, 



199 

our Nation helps with the eloquence of its great 
ideas. If mental and moral progress moves on 
through the next century, persons then living will 
possess and behold a more delicate and more 
widely spread nobleness that can be seen in these 
times; for although our earth and our race are 
old, a high nobleness is yet young. If so beauti- 
ful in youth, what will this gentility be in the 
high noon of its career ? 

Inasmuch as public men are the lawful themes 
of remark and the lawful objects of study, it is 
not necessary for us to close our eyes to the high 
nature of that resolve which led the President- 
elect to make a long journey that he might stand 
by the fresh grave of a faithful servant of the 
nation, and might help lament that goodness, 
however marked, is always moving toward the 
tomb. To the call of friendship, the call of 
humanity was added. A sensitive ear could not 
easily be deaf to such a pathetic invitation. In 
the Florence of Angelo's time all men paused a 
moment on the street when a funeral cortege was 
passing. Death was greater than business or 
pleasure. It was the king whom all must salute. 
When the President-elect journeyed across states, 



200 

when lie commanded all the work around him to 
hush while the coffin of a public man was being 
borne toward its place in the snow and grass, he 
acted within the borders of that high gentility 
which long, long ago began to draw its richly 
colored line between the refined citizen and the 
barbarian. 

Few are the young men who yet realize what 
a power and what a happiness are contained in 
the simplest ideal, manhood. The reason of man's 
being is sought in wealth or in notoriety or in 
what is called by the fascinating name of pleas- 
ure. But it is quite certain that those reasons of 
existence are poor when compared with the pos- 
session of a character which is beautiful to have 
and to reveal, and which is an ample passport 
to the world on either side of the grave. Not 
many can be poets, not many can be orators, but 
millions can have what poetry and eloquence can 
only express. After an orator has expressed the 
genius of a country, others must come to live and 
act the nation's life. Orators, therefore, need not 
be numerous. One man can utter a sentiment, 
but it is worthless until the millions have planted 
it in their hearts. The Scottish chief blew his 



201 

Lorn in the mountains, and then out of every 
ravine and thicket and cave came the brave 
soldiers of Wallace and Bruce. How empty the 
bugle-call, were there no rush of troops! How 
empty the oratory of a nation, if there is no rush 
of men to obey its high mandates! The men 
who utter eloquence must divide honors with the 
men who obey it. What our age needs is not that 
each public man be an orator, but that the state, the 
city, the church, the home, shall contain the men 
who are living a life befitting so advanced a period. 
The New Testament writer known as St. James 
could delineate a high manhood. It was " pure, 
peaceable, gentle, full of mercy, not fickle nor 
false." But, after a few years had passed, none 
came to live the higher life. The savages rolled 
down upon the cultivated races, and when Chris- 
tians and Romans emerged from the ruins, they, 
too, had lost the moral worth of St. James, and 
of that One who had created and inspired a group 
of saints. In the late years of our nation so 
many noble men have lived and gone down into 
noble graves, gone in such a richness of character, 
that the heart may well hope that an age of a 
high humanity is about to come. The remem- 



202 

brance of many who have recently left our world 
is the memory of lives well lived — lives in which 
kindness and intelligence and action were grandly 
mingled. These lives have not resulted from 
Christianity alone. Religion alone may create 
only a fanatic. To explain them we add to relig- 
ion the wide learning of the age and the sense of 
light born of the republic. Religion alone is a 
poor outfit for a traveling soul. The barbarous 
tribes are deeply religious. Knowledge alone 
will leave the heart poor. Liberty alone France 
possessed in her reign of terror. It is when a 
religion like that of Jesus joins a wide and deep 
intelligence, and when both act in a nation domin- 
ated by all the rights of man, the highest type of 
character becomes easily possible. The present 
time may forgive an American if he should fail to 
become a Methodist or a Presbyterian, but there 
can be no forgiveness for him should he fail to 
become a gentleman. In defense he can not plead 
the inadequacy of evidence, the mystery of doc- 
trine, the old cruelties of the church, or the errors 
of the holy books. The arguments in favor of 
gentility are clear as the sunbeams and are un- 
answerable forever. 



203 

It is well known that our land is producing 
more noble characters than any other nation ever 
produced, yet it is also well known that a vast 
swarm of young men are extracting nothing from 
our education or our religion or our profound 
study of human rights. Their ideals are low. 
They study the laws of the toilet, they become 
skillful in their judgment of liquors, they know 
all the paths of vice; if there is anything dis- 
graceful they find it, if there is' anything infamous 
they love it. This crowd, although large, is not 
as overwhelming as it was when it sunk Rome. 
Then all the sons of statesmen and scholars and 
orators became gamblers and drunkards and glut- 
tons. In our day it is necessary for a youth only 
to wish to see moral excellence and, behold, it rises 
up all around him like the beauties of land and 
sea on the horizon. We stand encompassed by 
beautiful lives and impressive graves. The mu- 
sical voices of the living are joined by the musical 
memories of the dead. 

The youth who has high aspirations must close 
his eyes to the littleness of an age and save his 
mind and heart for the vision of goodness and 
greatness. As artists on their noble studies of 



204 

nature do not sit down to sketch a malarial bog, 
or some piece of deadness or repulsiveness, but 
go to where a mountain of pines rises up from a 
flowery field, or to where the smiling ocean lifts 
the soul toward infinity, thus the youth who hopes 
to make high use of his stay upon earth must 
look long and with rapture upon those fields of 
human life where humanity unfolded itself in 
more colors than a whole summer-time can contain, 
and in a breadth and depth which no ocean can 
equal. 



©ur IRew )£ra. 

And he that sitteth upon the throne said: Behold! I make 
all things new. — Rev. xxi. 5. 

When Paul was making a sojourn in Athens, 
he marked this peculiarity of all those citizens 
and visitors who enjoyed any leisure — they spent 
their time in hearing or telling some new thing. 
They would meet daily in the public temples or 
common resorts and spend hours over the facts 
or theories of the time. A recent traveler in 
Greece says that the higher natives will surpass 
all other races in their willingness to sit early and 
late at a table to discuss the morals and politics 
of the whole world. The passion for political 
thought seems to link modern Greece with that 
of Socrates and Plato. 

It may be that Paul in his zeal for the young 
Christianity felt a little contempt for those Ath- 
enians; but he should have admired their mental 
drift, for, if he had just espoused a new religion, 
he ought to have commended that Greek spirit 
which was always looking for the newest thought 
and truth. The Athenians soon gathered around 
Paul and persuaded him to go up to the hill 

205 



206 

of Mars, and in that quiet place tell them all 
about his new Galilean theology. Great changes 
have come since that conference took place, but 
all these changes have come through that longing 
of the mind after new things. 

We must not forget to make a distinction be- 
tween the world's childish delight in novelties 
and its hunger after new truths and new things. 
It is always easy for a virtue to become a vice. 
A little child, eager for a new toy each day, is an 
object at which we may laugh or complain; but 
we can not complain or laugh at a Newton, who 
was eager to learn something new regarding the 
stars; nor at Columbus, who was eager to 
learn something new about the ocean which 
rolled at the West. In the conduct of the play- 
ing children we see only a foolish fickleness, but 
in the longings of the astronomer and the nav- 
igator we see one of the noblest qualities of the 
human mind. It is better, perhaps, not to desig- 
nate the rapid changes of childish taste as a vice ; it 
is rather the infant stage of a love for the new. 
Later years temper and guide this passion, just as 
the poets of the world are nothing else than the 
dreaming children of the earth carried onward to 



207 

a high standard of thought and language. When 
the little child rushes to its mother and tells her 
that it saw some lions and bears in the back 
yard, or saw some Indians stealing children from 
the park, that child is not wholly out of har- 
mony with the John Milton who saw angels fir- 
ing guns in Heaven, or with John Bunyan, who 
saw Giant Despair making life so sad for Chris- 
tian and Hopeful. 

Bunyan's giant caught these two travelers 
sleeping on his ground. He locked them up in 
a dark dungeon from Wednesday until Saturday, 
M without one bit of bread or drop of water or 
ray of light." At times the old giant went into 
the den and beat his captives with a crab -tree 
cudgel. On Saturday Christian remembered a 
key he possessed, called "Promise," and with 
that he opened the door, and away they both ran. 
This is a childish dream carried up toward a 
mental perfection — a dream full of truth, for all 
older ones know that the key of promise will 
help them away from the old Giant Despair. 

The fancies of young children and much of 
the fickleness of early life are the seed or the 
promises of that love of new things which at last 



208 

is the glory of our race. Man was created and 
placed in a very imperfect world. It must have 
contained little indeed. Could we reproduce the 
far-off scene which lay between the two poles a 
million years ago, we should see a spectacle of 
human poverty of which we know little. To 
reach some faint hint of that old emptiness we 
might even to-day repair to the African bushmen 
and see a picture of the human creature before 
his fancy had begun to work. 

Those bushmen do not assemble like the Ath- 
enians, to tell and learn some new thing. They 
would not lead a Paul away to a Mars Hill that 
he might regale them with a sketch of a new 
Jesus and a new faith. They have only a small 
language. They deal most in gestures and must 
build a fire when they would talk at night. 
Their language is to be seen rather than to be 
heard. They have not reached the power to 
build a house. They have not yet reached the 
intellect that can dream of wonderful things with 
our little children, or with our old Miltons and 
Bunyans. With them life is not infinite. It is 
very limited and very small. They do not make 
any progress, because they are incapable of think- 



209 

ing of any new condition. Many of them eat to 
the uttermost, and then attempt, by some nar- 
cotics, to sink into sleep. They love unconscious- 
ness more than they love the vexation of thought 
and life. 

Could we go back and see the human race 
through its whole extent in time, we should find 
one of its great turning points to be in that day 
in which men first began to inquire of each other 
about some new thing, and in which the heart began 
to dream of vast and blessed changes. Happy day 
to the primitive human race when some angel 
came and sung out from the sky: "Behold! I 
will make all things new!" With that voice in 
the sky, humanity began to toss itself forward. 
Its heart turned toward the new. 

Those evolutionists who make man a mitural 
result of other animals, and who identify man 
with the fish and bird, leave us all bewildered by 
the fact that no animal except man ever dreams 
of a new thing, a new surrounding, a new happi- 
ness. Man is the only form of life that loves the 
new. Before man there is always rising the pic- 
ture of a better world — not of heaven only, but 
of a better earth. All dumb brutes are finite; 
man struggles with the infinite. 



210 

There is a bird in Australia that makes a little 
garden, that plants seeds, that makes a sitting- 
room in which birds may assemble ; but this dear 
little creature has no dreams of a home better 
than the one it builds; it has no dreams of an 
America beyond the sea; it is never troubled 
with any thoughts of the beyond. You can not 
even ask it about God, or life, or death, because 
its mind is not capable of an inquiry. Man is 
the only animal to which you can speak of the 
future. His world reaches backward and forward ; 
and thus he separates himself from all other crea- 
tures and touches the infinite. If you speak to the 
horse about eternity the words are all lost; speak to 
ruan about it and he weeps. Thus between man 
and all other creatures a gulf lies which materi- 
alists have not bridged. 

Modern civilization comes from a source far 
more hidden than the fountains of the Nile. At 
least the source of the enlightened humanity is 
more hopelessly hidden, for Africa could be ex- 
amined mile by mile and foot by foot until it 
should be compelled to give up the secret; but 
it is impossible now to traverse the realms of old 
races, and find what stages it passed through on 



211 

its way to its historic condition. In this absence 
of fact we are permitted to believe that when 
man had advanced so far as to dream of new 
things, then his progress set in in a full power. 
Man's civilization has slowly emerged out of his 
mental superiority in this one particular — the 
power to project a new future. The human 
race has been created by its dreams. In its 
poverty it has been able to think of wealth; 
in its slavery it has been able to lay plans for 
liberty; in its taste it has been able to think 
of more and more beauty; in its many tears it 
has been able to think of more happiness. Thus 
the dreams of which we often make sport are 
the dearest hopes of our race. Even if man's 
individual "ship" does not come in, the ship of 
his race comes. "The Castles in Spain" hide in 
those playful words the real and noble mansions 
of many a nation. Man's dreams reveal his 
power. They are the early dawning of his bril- 
liant day. 

Go back along any of the great paths and we 
soon find the human mind growing eloquent over 
its future. The result is the same whether you 
open a holy book or only a volume in common 



212 

literature. At some page it breaks out into a 
rhapsody over human progress. Isaiah stands for 
the Hebrew commonwealth and empire: u Ho 
every one that thirsteth! Come ye to the waters, 
even he that is without money. Come, take wine 
and milk without money and without price. 
* * * My promise shall not return unto me 
void. It shall accomplish what I please. Ye 
shall go on with joy and be led forth in peace. 
.The mountains and the hills shall break forth 
before you into singing, and all the trees of the 
field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn 
shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the briar 
shall come up the myrtle." Isaiah went so far as 
to picture a day when all the wild beasts should 
put aside their ferocity and be led along by a 
little child. 

The substance of such a vision is all to be 
found in the philosophy of Socrates and Plato. 
In Virgil it springs up again in nearly the words 
of Isaiah. Virgil sang: " A great age will come. 
A high quality of years will be born. A more 
divine race will appear, and iron will yield up 
its place to gold. The serpents and the poison- 
ous weeds will perish. The fields will grow yel- 



213 

low with the ripening corn, and the sap of the 
oak will be honey.' 1 

In the Dream of Scipio, written perhaps by 
Cicero, all this triumph of man is seen beyond 
the river of death: There Scipio sees his parents 
and friends and loved ones in an image grander 
than life and in a nobleness that made earth seem 
humble. These and many similar passages all 
united in declaring man to be a child of destiny — 
a mind that can urge its world always onward and 
can make all things redouble their value. 

Against Henry George's theory of non- owner- 
ship of land, some one quoted a sentence from a 
writer of the former century: "Give man the 
secure possession of a bleak rock and he will 
turn it into a garden; give him a nine -year lease 
of a garden and he will turn it into a desert." 
This old sentence illustrates the fact that man did 
take his desert world and did make a garden out 
of it. It stands all beautified in Greece and 
Italy and France, beautified everywhere because 
man, the dreamer, has lived in it and with it. 
Although life has been too much like a lease for 
man's perfect peace for all hours, yet nearly all 
talent and love have acted as though they were to 



214 

dwell here forever. When man is in his full 
power his heart acts as though it were to beat for- 
ever. Owning this world he turns the barren 
rock into a garden, and all this great change 
conies through his perpetual dream of a new 
greatness and a new beauty. 

There was given to man in the beginning a 
very simple world, but its possibilities were infi- 
nite. We must, therefore, conceive of society as 
marching from one to infinity. New ideas must 
come each day. There can be no such thing as a 
fixed politics, or a fixed social life, or a fixed 
religion. When the sun sets each evening we 
bid farewell to the world of that day. It will 
never return. The rising sun of the next morn- 
ing says: "Behold! I shall make all things new." 
The world will waken to new thoughts. The 
kings nave attempted to make the human race 
stand still, but not all the power of empires has 
availed to keep crowns from falling and liberty 
from springing up from the dust. The Calvin - 
ists attempted to make their creed perpetual, but 
what flourished so triumphantly in a past century 
dies suddenly in this period. The Roman Cath- 
olic Church is carried along by the same irrepress- 



215 

ible growth of the race, and, boasting of being 
founded upon a rock, finds that its rock moves. 
The laws of the universe do not know any differ- 
ence between the Protestant and' the Catholic, the 
republican and the democrat. It cries out to all : 
March from A to B ; and soon the ground trembles 
beneath the footsteps of men. All the known 
}30wers of money, church and state can not keep 
humanity still. One might as well put a heavy 
stone on the shadow of a tree to keep the sun 
from moving. 

What, then, is conservatism ? Conservatism is 
the desire to keep society from moving to a worse 
condition. It is also a desire to keep man from 
running madly when he ought to move slowly. 
It is also a desire to remain in a safe place while 
in great doubt. It is often a sending out of a 
dove to see if the delude has ceased. Conserva- 
tism has no meaning whatever when it is arrayed 
against progress. It is, in such cases, only a dig- 
nified name for stupidity. Much of modern con- 
servatism is only a profound satisfaction taken 
by a man in a selfish or stupid life. If you 
would find the lawful arena of conservatism, read 
in the "Vicar of Wakefield" that chapter iu 



216 

which Moses was sent to town to sell the family 
horse. The family was in great poverty, and 
had to part with its domestic pet. In the 
evening Moses returned. He had sold the animal 
for <£3 15s. and 2d. This price was low enough to 
make the family weep. But the worst had not 
been told. Moses had not received cash for the 
noble pet, but he had taken a box of green spec- 
tacles which were said to be worth the alleged 
sum. Moses ought to have possessed conserva- 
tism enough to make him bring back the horse 
unsold. Thus, conservatism is a wall between 
society and the insanity of crime or blind 
folly ; but when a new and true idea comes, this 
wall is to be torn down, and we must all move 
out and move on. The sweetly new is a voice 
from the sky. It is the dove returning with an 
olive leaf in its mouth, thus telling us to leave 
the old, dark ark and move out into the fresh, 
sunlit world. 

The early phrenologists found in the brain a 
department wholly devoted to wonder. Impelled 
by that quality of the mind, the little child is for- 
ever asking questions of its patient mother. It 
wonders : What are the stars ? What is on the 
moon? What makes the thunder and the light- 



217 

ning? What makes the snow? What makes 
night? Who taught the birds to sing? Who 
painted the flowers ? Who made God ? What is 
sleep? What is death? Oh, marvelous and divine 
island in the soul's ocean! Oh, enchanting land 
beyond any described in fable or history! Long 
after man has passed out of childhood his won- 
derment runs on and on, and, should he live a 
hundred years, he passes all his last days in deep 
wondering. The scene becomes too great for 
him. In his limited circle he struggles with the 
infinity around him. If he climbs a height he 
sees more, indeed, but this new height makes the 
horizon more sweeping. The questions which 
childhood asks increase in all after years. The 
heart simply does not utter them because it has 
no longer a mother to whom to run. In an in- 
finite and silent wonderment mother and son at 
last meet. 

This is the corner of the brain which at last 
makes poetry and then baffles it. One of the 
poets says: 

" Where lies the land to which our ship must go? 
Far, far ahead, is all her seamen know. 
And where the land she travels from ? Away, 
Far, far behind, is all that they can say." 



218 

Another poet asks: 

" Oh, where will be the birds that sing 
A hundred years to come ? 
The flowers that now in beauty spring 
A hundred years to come? 
The rosy lip, the lofty brow, 
The heart that beats so gayly now ? 
Oh, where will be the beaming eye? 
Joy's happy smile and sorrow's sigh 
A hundred years to come?" 

Out of this perpetual wonderment of the mind 
comes much of the fact and splendor of humanity. 
Armed and inspired by this wonder, man starts 
out as a barbarian and comes in at last with a 
civilization. The Greek wondered if there were 
not a more perfect face, a more perfect form, and 
out of his longings came a high art. The Greek 
woman wondered if woman must be a slave for- 
ever. Out of her anxiety came a Sappho, a poet- 
ess and writer to rival the fame of Pericles. 
Christ wondered if there miirht not be a nobler 
human career, and to-day his name is worn by all 
the greatest nations. A sailor once wondered if 
there might not be a hemisj^here to the west. 
His wonder at last secured three ships and after- 
ward pulled the old thick veil off two continents. 



219 

Encompassed by sucli a long series of scenes, 
we can not but conclude that the highest duty .of 
society is to compel its flagging soldiers to march 
on toward a better future. We must always 
appeal to our fainting hearts and tell them that 
God and nature have ordered an advance. We 
must be young even in old age, because, when a 
man is ninety, his church and state and city are 
still young. Each day they begin a new life. A 
new socialism is here, a new orthodoxy is here, 
new books are here, new art, new songs, new 
prayers, new beauty. The man of white hair 
must live and die in a new world. Only his body 
can be old. All of the great things longed for 
come, and, being noble, they take their place 
among the treasures of civilization. America 
is the land which Columbus longed for; and 
its freedom to-day is that of which the Wash- 
ington all dreamed. In our country are to be 
found now the garnered longings of years. 

There is a vast difference between a great 
new age and an age of novelties. There are 
young men who keep up with the age by order- 
ing a new kind of coat. Its corners are more 
rounded than they were yesterday. These youths 



220 

■carry a lighter walking stick and hold it in a 
new way. So are there ladies who keep up 
with the age by purchasing a new kind of hat. 
Of these matters and persons civilization takes 
no note. It does indeed remember that the 
Greek men and women did not change their 
style of robe, head-dress and girdle once in a 
thousand years. This release left them time to 
become great in intellect, and the important 
fact is, that,in that land of manhood and woman- 
hood, changed a poor body for a better one, 
and a common mind for one more gifted, low 
art for high art, and the mutterings of savages for 
a language and literature rich beyond all descrip- 
tion. The heart fond of novelties is only an 
infant's heart when compared with a soul that 
gathers up the mighty truths and feelings of a 
new period. 

On the coast of the German Ocean women and 
children, and men also, are constantly walking 
to and fro looking in the sand for the lumps 
of amber cast out by tide and storm. Here, in 
this great republic, a large company of minds 
has walked to and fro on the shores of a new 
ocean, and valuable is the wealth they have 



221 

found. It has come from both war and peace. 
Never walked the wondering, longing mortals 
upon sand so rich. They have found liberty, 
education, rights, a religion of deeds and love, 
all the arts in beauty beyond those seen by 
Phidias or Zeuxis, music far beyond what the 
past ever heard, and then a public taste for 
a goodness and beauty higher still and much 
more abundant. The divine voice, " I shall 
make all things new" has been sacredly kept 
to our age. A new civilization has come rap- 
idly, as though weary of its long delay. 

To you who live in this part of the noble earth 
much of these material and mental riches has 
come. You have not strolled on life's shore in 
vain. You have found amber in the sand; but 
whom will you elect as guardians of these treas- 
ures and longings of the new West ? What men 
will you choose to execute your ideas of well 
being and well doing? What men will you 
appoint to utter all your noblest thoughts and to 
embody them in the city's public and private life ? 
What men will express your taste or your elo- 
quence? Can the depraved take care of the 
splendor the noble have created? The answer is 



222 

loud and distinct. A new and splendid age needs 
a new politics. It is a crime to gather up good- 
ness and beauty from all places and times and 
then ask the saloons and city bedlams to fashion 
our politics. More than we need new statues, 
new pictures, new music, new temples, new 
parks, we need a new municipal life. A great 
age must create a great politics. The men who 
make an era must save it and love it. A 
party should rise up out of the new time, 
that the new time might stand guardian of its 
own mental treasures. We early perceive two 
large religious groups in religion — the Protest- 
ants and the Catholics, and two large political 
groups, each of which four groups could contrib- 
ute some mind fully adequate to speak and act 
for the time. Civilization does not indeed know 
anything about the lines that divide men iuto 
parties in church or state. Civilization can take 
note of only intelligence and virtue, but human 
brotherhood sees and feels these lines, and, there- 
fore, the new politics would best look upon human 
friendship as being one of its latest and best 
principles. Each of the great groups should 
contribute its most noble and typical mind, and 



223 

these minds, working together, should take care 
of the civilization they love and have helped 
to create. 

This angel of the sky having said to all the 
races which have come and gone, "I will make all 
things new," having said these words to the first 
artist who attempted to carve or paint beauty, 
having repeated them to the first orator who 
wished to speak, and to the first poet who at- 
tempted to be the mouthpiece of the human 
heart, having flung the rich promise to the first 
full soul that ever attempted to express a senti- 
ment in song, having cheered the first citizens who 
ever dreamed of founding a republic — this kind 
angel, crowned and loving as the Creator himself, 
comes at last to each faithful man when he is 
dying, and while earth is receding whispers to 
him in that moment, when all the dear things 
seem passing away forever, and says, "Behold, 
dying heart, I will make all things new!" 



tributes 



{Tribute IDerees, 

:JBe ffranfc M. (Sunsaulus. 

Where gentle waves come slowly into shore, 

Beside the sea-green splendor, loved and praised, 

Sleeps his last sleep the poet-priest .who bore 
Man's soul to heaven, in dear hands upraised. 

He swung no censer fragrant with sweet fire; 

His was the incense of God's fairest thought; 
He held the chalice of the soul's desire; 

His faith with jewels all its gold en wrought. 

His priestly robe, all beauteous with gems, 
Was holy eloquence, and truth, and love; 

He knew how poor are earth's best diadems; 
His were the riches of the life above. 

Our poet-preacher, in his words of prose, 
Made life a lyric, and its dreams sublime; 

Far from his musing and his hope there goes 
Eternal music for the sons of time. 

No son of thunder, with a lightning stroke 
Smiting an ice-field in his furious blast; 

His was the sun-burst, as from heaven it broke, 
Sure of its triumph when the noise had passed. 

Light, white as Heaven, warmth, as soft as tears, 
Came from his genius like an April day. 

So, melting dogmas with their twilight fears, 
Summer hath conquered in the breath of May. 

225 



226 

Hard were the bands that held the feet of Truth, 

Weary of cold, and frozen into creeds; 
His sunny soul hath kissed her lips and youth; 

Lo, Truth comes bearing harvestings of deeds. 

His was the fragrance when the storm is done — 
Breath of the lilies when the sky is clear. 

Through all the tumult, God had this strong son 
Telling our doubtings: " The Divine is here." 

One to this prophet were the good and true — 
One with all beauty in the earth and sky; 

His was the faith that gave this world its due; 
His was the love that laid its honors by. 

He loved the Christ whose beauty was more dear 
And sweeter far than strains of angel's lyre; 

For this alone — Christ filled life's deepest tear 
With God's own glory and divine desire. 

Far on the edge where seas of doubt roll high, 

This soul was calm, 'midst surf and storm un vexed; 

Far o'er the waves, beneath a clouded sky, 

Moved a fair soul with doubtings unperplexed. 

Ye called him vague? What soul, who stands and knows 
All man would feel and all that man may find, 

Waits not in silence? For truth's morning rose 
Opes leaf by leaf within the faithful mind. 

Xever did he with trumpet call the brave 

Round some rush-light that soon must die away. 

He spake: " 'Tis dawn!" when o'er the earth and wave 
Quivered the promise of a new-born day. 



227 



His was John's Gospel of the love divine; 

His was the logic of the human heart. 
His was the sight, intuitive and fine, 

Finding the Savior in life's common mart. 

Where, asking questions, Socrates had found 
Wisdom and silence in the open mind, 

There, in old Greece, he lived in thoughts profound; 
Near the JEgean was his hope enshrined. 

What hours were they, when on the streets of Rome, 
Walking with him, philosopher and seer, 

Horace or Virgil led our poet home, 

Nor asked a verse to make his presence dear. 

Both Greek and Roman, intellect and law, 

Found in his Christ their whole demand fulfilled. 

O for the Vision and the Face he saw, 

When adoration bade the creeds be stilled ! 

Moan, autumn winds ! His autumn-time was here; 

Ruddy and golden all the fruit he bore. 
'Midst harvest sheaves and leafage brown and sere 

We say: "Farewell, but not fore vermore." 



Sermon 

2>eli\>ereo b£ 1Rev>. 3obn 1b. Narrows, 2). S>., pastor of tbe 

afirst Presbyterian Gburcb, Cbicago, at tbe 

ffuneral Service belo in tbe 

Central Cburcb. 

The power of an endless life. — Hebrews vii. 16. 

The grieving multitudes gathered in this beau- 
tiful hall — the monument and memorial of the 
love which David Swing inspired in your hearts — 
are only a small part of the greater multitude 
who cherish his name and his life in affectionate 
and grateful remembrance. But we do not mourn 
for one who has gone out of existence. He has 
rather just entered into life, the full and endless 
life, whose ennobling, inspiring, restraining and 
consoling power he so beautifully proclaimed. 
It might have been said of him, as was said of 
Agassiz, that, "to be one hour in his company 
was to gain the strongest argument for the immor- 
tality of the soul.'" And these flowers, children 
of that beauty which he loved, the sweetness of 
music, these words of tender prayer and the tears 
which may not all be kept back, also speak, now 
that he has gone, not only of our affection but of 
our faith in the rationality and goodness of this 

228 



229 

universe, created and governed by him who has 
brought life and immortality into full light 
through the Gospel of Christ. 

Sometimes, in life, Professor Swing gave to his 
friends an impression of pensive loneliness, as if 
his heart- hunger for affection, which years and 
sorrows only increased, had never been satisfied. 
Enough of love is expressed in this meeting, at 
his burial hour, to content any soul. Our thoughts 
at this time might be: " Forever silent is that 
voice which, with its magic like that of the fabled 
music of old, built those modern walls for the 
service of God and man." The good gray head 
which all men knew, is gone from our sight. The 
deft spinner and weaver of tfie brain will offer 
no more fabrics for our delight. The beautiful 
home by the lake shore, where the father and 
grandfather was the center of love, is darkened, 
and the library in which he found companion- 
ship with Plato, and Dante, and Milton, and all 
the chief sages and poets, will miss the master's 
hand. 

But these shall not be our meditations, but 
rather, how thankful we are for such a gift kept 
for us so long; how many and good are the les- 



230 

sons of his character, and how abiding the fruits 
of his wisdom. When great men have died, it 
was his wont to speak of them from this pulpit. 
He not only surveyed the wide world of letters 
and of action, enriching other minds with his 
thought, but how tenderly he always spoke of 
the illustrious dead, as one by one they sank 
from sight — Sumner, Garfield, Phillips, Beecher, 
Blaine, Phillips Brooks, Tennyson, Whittier, 
Browning, Dr. Patterson, and the rest. What a 
genius he had for appreciating the good and 
great, and how little disposition to believe evil 
and to point with snarling criticism at supposed 
imperfections ! 

We covet his skill and his temper in speaking 
our thoughts to-day. No one in our city was 
more esteemed by all classes of men for his 
humanity, which reached not only to the poor of 
his kind, but to the dumb animals. His modesty, 
his wisdom, his scholarship, his gentleness, drew 
to him men and women of many types. Old con- 
troversies had worn themselves out, and men val- 
ued him for what he was. He was our most 
famous citizen, or, with Mr. Moody, the evangelist, 
and Miss Willarcl, the reformer, he was one of 



231 

our three most famous citizens, and he is mourned 
to-day by devout and loving souls throughout the 
Northwest and all over America. It was to this 
place that other men of fame, coming to our city, 
Hocked on Sunday, somewhat as they used to go 
to Plymouth Church in Brooklyn, or as they are 
now found in Westminster Abbey. Our friend, 
your pastor and teacher, will be mourned beyond 
the seas, by good men in London, and in other 
lands, and even in far-off Calcutta the tears will 
fall in Peace Cottage when Mozoomdar learns 
that his friend has gone before him. 

But here the Catholic and the Methodist, the 
Baptist and the Congregationalist, the Presby- 
terian and Episcopalian, the Unitarian and the 
Jew, feel that a brother has been taken, and the 
city will seem impoverished to many thousands, 
even though they feel that his life on earth will con- 
tinue, since he has joined "the choir invisible of 
those select souls whose music is the gladness 
of the world." 

It is natural for us, in comparing him with 
other men, to say that he ranks with Frederick 
W. Kobertson and Dean Stanley, with Bushnell 
and Beecher, in the temper of his mind and the 



232 

quality of his thought; but I prefer, without any 
comparison, to think of David Swing as a genius, 
unique, original, doing faithfully the work to 
which he believed he was called in the peculiar 
circumstances of his life. That life is very familiar 
to those whom I address. We call before our 
minds his early career — his father a pilot on the 
Ohio, a man of stern temper but of strict integ- 
rity, on whose tombstone are written the words, 
"He was an honest man;" the meager advantages 
of his younger years, his going up to 'college 
from the farm at Williamsburg, where he had 
read a few borrowed novels and Calvin's Institutes, 
and gained a good start in Latin; his successful 
student career, his companionship with men who 
became famous, his success as a teacher of the 
classics, his call to this city, and the pastorships 
of the Westminster and Fourth Presbyterian 
churches, the breadth and originality of his 
preaching, the heresy trial, his acquittal by the 
presbytery, the renewal of the charges before the 
synod, his withdrawal from the Presbyterian 
Church, the organizing of the Central Church, 
the building of this hall, the wideniDg of his 
fame and influence, and the twenty years of his 
faithful preaching. 



233 

At the Miami University he roused the enthu- 
siasm of all, and whenever he lectured or preached, 
the college and village poured out their throngs 
to hear him, as the great cities did in later years ; 

and those who heard him at the beginning remem- 

© © 

ber well that his ideas were as unconventional and 
broad from the start as in later times, and the 
temper of his mind was the same, while his liter- 
ary style, fashioned by his genius and his famil- 
iarity with the classic poets, was the same Virgil - 
ian prose as that which has captivated so many 
thousands. 

He will be remembered as a preacher of a new 
type. He stood before you luminous with a 
heavenly light, his features made lovely by his 
thought, discoursing of the life of man, "the life 
of love, the divine Jesus, the blissful immortality." 
He found in the Bible, to use his own words, 
" the record of God's will as to the life and salva- 
tion of his children." He did not preach like 
others, but according to the bent of his own 
genius. His discourse might not harmonize with 
Professor Phelps' definition of a sermon ; it was 
not always a popular speech on truth derived 
directly from the scriptures, elaborately treated 



234 

with a view to persuasion, but there was a quiet 
power which moved many minds, as fiery exhorta- 
tion or "elaborate exegesis does not always move 
them. With ethical enthusiasm, with luminous 
intelligence, with gentle sympathy, he made 
known his faith in God's goodness and man's 
possibilities. His intellectual refinement was 
extraordinary, and it seems almost an irony of 
fate that this rude city of the West should have 
held the most cultured and esthetic of American 
preachers, as it certainly seems strange to millions 
that out of Chicago one vear ago there blossomed 
the fairest flower of art the earth has ever seen. 

And here, through all these years, David Swing 
taught the people to love God and man. " We 
find in the Christian church, " he said, "the ideal 
service of our Heavenly Father. It is one among 
ten thousand, and, in its leading head, Christ, it 
is spotless." He had a zeal for righteousness, 
and this came with his blood, for he was 
descended from the Protestant Germans who 
were driven out of the Palatinate. He was a 
reformer who did not come over in the May- 
flower. But, though not of Xew England parent- 
age, he knew the meaning for liberty of that 



235 

little ship which, as he said, carried "a continent 
and a republic." 

But he was no fanatic, demanding impossi- 
bilities or advocating any rigorous asceticism of 
conduct; he loved all the humanities and the 
gracious pleasures of life, while he denounced 
with quiet earnestness all public and private sins. 
His civic patriotism was not less marked than his 
genuine Americanism, and his last sermon, given 
here only three weeks ago, told what he thought 
of the recent troubles which have imperiled our 
liberty. And we shall do well to listen again to 
the last words he ever uttered in his pulpit : 

" Oh, that God, by His almighty power, may 
hold back our Nation from destruction for a few 
more perilous years, that it may learn where lie 
the paths in which, as brothers just and loving, 
all may walk with the most of excellence and 
the most of happiness." 

It was excellence and happiness which he 
strove to advance in every way, and he helped to 
teach us faith in ourselves as we are brought 
under the power of truth and goodness. By his 
life and words he showed that the art of Athens 
and the diviner art of Jerusalem may have a 



236 

home among us. As he felt deeply that men are 
to be aided best through hope and through gen- 
erous praise, he would not fix his mind on the 
evil only. He said: " If we come to think that 
all are worshiping gold, we, too, despairing of all 
else, will soon betray ourselves by bowing at the 
same altar." 

He seemed free from the greed of gain him- 
self, and stood and shone as a beautiful intellect- 
ual light in our city. You who are members of 
this congregation are glad that you furnished the 
golden candlestick from which his life streamed 
out, and that you were yourselves the medium 
through which that light first passed to others. 
He called our thoughts away to the better aspects 
of the age, and while men were scanning with 
eager envy the deeds of the millionaires, he bade 
us mark " how our scholars hurried to the far 
West to study the last eclipse of the sun, and 
how a score of new scientists met on that mount- 
ain-top to ask the shadow to tell them something 
more about the star depths and the throne of the 
Almighty." Who else in our times has preached 
more continuously and persuasively the gospel of 
a kingdom of God on earth ? 



237 

I need scarcely analyze the qualities of his 
mind, they were so palpable to the community. 
His extraordinary mental resources are well 
known, the poetic and, perhaps, mystic cast of 
mind, his love of music, his love of art, his 
delight in beauty, his familiarity with all that 
is best in literature, and, I may add, his good 
judgment of public men and measures, his level- 
headedness and lack of that foolish credulity in 
believing almost every evil of successful men 
which marks a certain narrow, fastidious, and 
pessimistic type of character. After the great 
fire he proved himself in practical ways a most 
efficient helper of the needy, giving himself, in 
company with a dear friend, to the work of caring 
for the destitute. He had a faculty of drawing 
to his side the men of .civic might and influence, 
and if you will read his declaration and argu- 
ment made during his trial for heresy, you will 
discover in him a power of clear, discriminating 
statement, and of forceful reasoning, which may 
surprise any one familiar only with the more 
imaginative workings of his great mind. 

Professor Swing was not aggressive and 
belligerent, but if any human brother was ill- 



238 

treated, whether the Jew in Russia, or the negro 
at the South, his voice was quick in protest. He 
was not belligerent, I say, but he was splendidly 
persistent, holding to the truth as he saw it with 
a loving but invincible tenacity. It was not 
the noisy persistence of Niagara, but the quiet 
persistence of the sun and the punctual stars. He 
appeared to be without any ambition in the ordi- 
nary sense; he did not husband his literary 
resources, but poured out his thoughts with mar- 
velous facility, never rewriting or repeating a 
discourse. What he wrote came from his pen 
without interlineation; and his memory was so 
tenacious that he required no memorandum book 
for thoughts and facts. He always knew where 
to find what he required. He deemed it a bless- 
ing that his old sermons were burned up in 
the fire, since he was delivered from the temp- 
tation to fall back on what he had done. 

And you will know that he was a man of 
deep and quick sympathies; many of us will 
cherish the words he wrote to us in sorrow as 
among the sweetest and most comforting that 
ever came from a Christian heart. He was deeply 
attached to his old friends, and especially to this 



239 

city, where for nearly thirty years his voice lias 
been heard in behalf of righteousness and love. 
He, whom we mourn, loved Chicago as it loved 
him, and though he once made a European jour- 
ney, his heart never traveled, and he always 
preferred to see the Old World through the 
eyes of the poet and historian, and to dwell 
here among his old friends. 

And you all remember how his wit and humor 
were as remarkable as his affection at en ess and 
his imagination. He may have been tempted to 
satirize too keenly at times, and too frequently, 
the theological conservatism against which his life 
was a protest; but surely here is a weapon which 
good men have a right to use, and he employed 
it as the friend of God and man. I scarcely 
know of anything better in its way than his recent 
picture of the slowness of the human mind, 
even in this age of express trains and telegraphs. 
" Our moral world," he said, "is dragged by oxen. 
It has no railroad speed. The railway carries 
men's bodies rapidly, but it never interferes 
with the old slow speed of intellect. The intel- 
lect of the church always travels in the oxen's 
cart.'' 1 But we bless God that it does travel, and 



240 

an ox cart in twenty years will make the circuit 
of the globe. 

And what shall I say of our friend's perma- 
nent influence? If tolerance in religion be the 
best fruit of the last four hundred years, accord- 
ing to the words of President Eliot, written on 
the vanished Peristyle, then David Swing's con- 
tribution to the tolerant spirit was a large addi- 
tion to our civilization. Who has done more to 
make us love those who do not think with us, and 
to eradicate the notion that one's own form of 
goodness or faith must be accepted by others, if 
they are to share our hope in God and immor- 
tality ? He was acute and broad enough, as some 
are not, to perceive that the truest spirit of toler- 
ance flourishes, not only among those who 
believe but little, but also among Christians 
who believe very earnestly the general creed 
which Christendom has proclaimed through more 
than eighteen centuries. This man helped to bring 
us out of the backwoods theology, which was 
extremely useful in its time, but was contentious 
and fitted to a rougher generation, and was not 
sufficiently ethical, and was not just either to God 
or man. 



241 

He suffered, and younger men have breathed 
freer air because of what he endured in behalf of 
spiritual breadth and freedom. Thousands of 
Presbyterians will now applaud what he said at 
his trial. "Much as I love Presbyterian ism, a 
love inherited from all my ancestors, if, on 
account of it, it were necessary for me to abate in 
the least my good will toward all sects, I should 
refuse to purchase the Presbyterian name at so 
dear a price.' ' He helped forward the movement 
for revising the Westminster Confession, and the 
more logical and important movement for displac- 
ing it by a shorter, simpler, more scriptural state- 
ment. He helped to make possible such an exhi- 
bition of the grandeur of religion and the broth- 
erhood of all religious men, as that which last 
year, in his own words, made this lake shore 
" almost roseate with the passing chariot of the 
Infinite." 

Professor Swing is lovingly praised by many 
who do not share his theological views; and his 
influence was large, and will grow larger, over 
many thoughtful minds that prefer to remain 
closer than did he to historical Christianity. They 
have learned, in part from him, to look on the 



24-2 

other side, on what I may call the ethical and lit- 
erary side of Christian truth. He was influenced 
more by the poets than by the theologians. It 
has been said by Dr. Munger that the greater lit- 
erature is prophetic and optimistic, it is un- 
worldly, it stands squarely upon humanity, its 
inspiration is truth, and it is corrective of poor 
thinking, of that which is crude, extravagant, 
superstitious, hard, one-sided. This influence 
will continue to emancipate and illuminate the 
Christian mind. More men will yet feel that 
they will live a truer and more Christly life by 
cherishing gentler thoughts of other good men, 
and by a larger faith that the spirit of God is 
working everywhere. You love to hear his voice, 
and, therefore, listen to him once more. " We may 
love our garden and home tenderly, but we must 
not trample down the field of another; but each 
morning when the dew hangs upon our vines, we 
must confess that it glistens as well in the parks 
of our neighbors, and sparkled before we were 
born, and will be full of sunbeams after we are 
dead.' 1 

Now that he has oone, how manv of us wish 
that we had known him better ! And yet, many 



243 

felt that lie was tlieir friend, and that they knew 
him well, though they may never have sat at his 
table or conversed with him familiarly of high 
themes. Their souls have had sympathetic com- 
munion with his spirit, and every week they have 
talked with what was best of him. For several 
years it was my fortune to live within a few 
miles of the poet Whittier, and I never thought it 
needful to intrude myself into his home in order 
to know him ; for had he not spoken his choicest 
thoughts to me for twenty years? Had I not 
fallen in love with his "MaudMuller" in the 
hayfield? Had not his " Barefoot Boy" been my 
friend ? Had I not pitched my tent of imagina- 
tion on the Atlantic beach with him, and had 
I not felt his summer -heart even when snow- 
bound in the icy solitudes of winter? Had I not 
watched with the "Quaker Poet " on election eve, 
when the fate of freedom was in jeopardy, and 
with his childhood's playmate had I not felt the 
Mayday flowers "make sweet the woods of Folly- 
mill," and had I not heard " the dark pines sing 
on Ramoth Hill the slow song of the sea?" Had 
not his psalm been to me like David's ? And why 
should I look at the features of the " Hermit 



244 

Thrush of Amesbury " to know the music of his 
soul? 

All this is true with many of our friends. It 
was true of David Swing, and it will remain 
peculiarly true now that he has gone. He still 
speaks to us, and we may know his inmost heart ; 
his soul lies open before us on the printed pages, 
and if that which is keyed to universal truth is 
not to be outgrown, why should not men and 
women read for generations the thoughts of David 
Swing i Why should they not read him as they do 
Sir Thomas Browne and Jeremy Taylor and Em- 
erson i Who can hope to clothe in more beauti- 
ful garments the sweetest forms of heavenly 
truth? Who will ever write of the goodness of 
God in language more lucid and melodious than 
his \ His " Truths for To-day" are truths for the 
twentieth century, and his ''Motives of Life" are 
more lasting than Karnac and the pyramids. 
Though his greatness was literary and ethical, 
rather than theological, still he has influenced 
the popular creeds more than many theologians. 

We bid farewell to a gracious spirit whose 
outward form we shall not see. and. while we 
mourn an irreparable loss, we count also his ineff- 



245 



able gain. He has crossed the bar, and it was 
peaceful and beautiful. He Las met his Pilot 
face to face, and has entered the haven and found 
the heavenly shore in the great mystery beyond, 
many - peopled with those whom he loved and 
who were glad to welcome him. The happy 
immortality which he preached is a dearer delight 
to him than to most men. He has found selectest 
company there, whose thoughts were sweet to 
him on earth. If we could have followed his 
spirit's flight we might have seen something to 
remind us of the vision w T hich King Arthur's 
friend had of his passing out of sight — 

" Then from the dawn it seemed there came, but faint, 
As from beyond the limit of the world, 
Like the last echo born of a great cry, 
Sounds as if some fair city were one voice, 
Around a king returning from his wars." 

He has had a choral welcome there. All the 
chief friends who stood by him at the time of 
his sorest earthly discipline greet him yonder, 
and what multitudes besides ! May the power of 
that endless life into which he has entered abide 
with us! A leader of thought, a prophet of the 
gentle humanities of Jesus, has fallen, and the 
old places which he loved here are desolate. 



246 

. The October leaves will cover paths where he 
used to walk, winter will spread her white man- 
tle over the earth, and spring, which he so loved, 
will come again and clothe the field with grass 
and blossoms: but he will not see them, nor the 
summer flowers, which seem to live in his speech. 
But we believe that his is an eternal springtime, 
or a beautiful, unending summer, and that more 
than all the loveliness which he knew on earth 
shall be his forever. A still living master in 
Israel has written: ,; There is only one gathering 
place of the great and good which shall never be 
left desolate; only the shade of the Tree of Life 
shall be always refreshing: only the stream from 
the Fountain of Life shall flow on without end." 



Gbe fl>oet preacber, 

B Sermon oeltvereo bg 5>r. JEmil (3. Ibirscb, IRabbi of 
Sfnat temple. 

Among Biblical heroes, none has whetted the 
imagination of later generations to the degree 
that Solomon has. The bare outlines of his life 
as given in the Biblical record seem but a shadowy 
fringe to the glory of the sun which loving fancy 
dreamt had risen with this monarch's reign to 
bless Israel. He was accredited with wonderful 
gifts. He understood the whispered speech of 
the stars, the soft pleadings of the forests; he 
knew the secrets of the birds as they were war- 
bled forth from bough to bough ; what the ants in 
their council of war buried in the deepest of their 
hearts, Solomon was believed to have unraveled ; 
the rivers ran but to tell him of their message 
and their ambition, and to inform him of the 
commission with which they were charged ; he 
understood all the languages that were spoken 
under heaven's dome, and had power to command 
energies generally jealously guarded from the 
possession and ken of human minds. And more 
than this, it is said in the legends recording the 

247 



l>48 

wonder -deeds of this Jewish king, that when he 
brought the holy ark into the temple, the very- 
cedar wood which clothed the walls began to 
bloom again, and, as long as Solomon reigned, 
the freshness of this transplanted denizen of the 
heights never waned or even g-ave sioms of 
withering. 

All comparisons, of course, halt; and still, for 
one who knows these legendary and fanciful 
portraits of the Eastern monarch, the suggestion 
is ready at hand that one who had like gifts has 
departed from our midst. Solomon, famous for 
his wisdom, had powers not greater than in the 
providence of God were given unto him to do 
honor to whose memory we are gathered here 
this morning. Like unto Solomon he knew the 
speech of the trees and the tongues of the running 
brooks; like unto Solomon of the fable when he 
entered the temple, the very cedar wood began 
to bloom, and as long as he was present in the 
sanctuary the freshness did not pale and the per- 
fume did not grow less. A miracle was wrought 
by his very tongue, and stone gave response, as 
it were, to the pleadings of the softer human 
heart. 



249 

The first hours of pungent grief always are 
heavy with the dull sense of a great loss. But 
perhaps the loss is but apparent, and the gain is 
all the more permanent. Ours, then, is the duty 
to measure our loss and balance it over against 
the permanent possession left in sacred trust with 
us by this life now closed. And yet we must 
confess that none there is who can do justice to 
its fullness of gifts and powers. Yea, we must 
be modest and remember that perhaps posterity 
alone can gauge the influences for good this life 
sent forth in this large country. While we 
merely may lay the finger on the roots, our chil- 
dren will find shade and refreshment under the 
crown of the tree developed into beauty. 

Is not genius like those mighty rivers whose 
sources are the constant anxiety of geographical 
explorers ? However far we may penetrate into 
the caverns of their icy birthplaces, the actual 
spot whence they bubble out and the real secret 
of their mighty sweep eludes forever the grasp 
of the diligent searcher. 

Who has laid his finger on the cradle of 
Rhine or Danube? None. Who can tell us 
w r hy the Nile carries its strength ? None. Who, 



250 

why and how Congo was ushered into life ? As 
yet, none. Like these rivers, genius forever is 
an unread riddle. However far we may push 
back in our climb up the heights to the sources, 
there remains mystery unsolved, for genius is 
powerful reflection of light divine, is revelation 
of God himself. 

And so, in this our search for the mighty 
sources of that river which has given refreshing 
waters to many thirsting lips, and has wooed 
forth flowers along many a bank and strand, we 
are confronted with the old despair, if despair it 
be, that genius 1 birthplace is curtained off from 
the eye of man ; it is in the holy of holies where 
God's presence abideth and into which even high 
priest can not penetrate except with downcast 
face and in humble and unknowing reverence. 

None can tell whence the power came to oar 
friend gone from us. Nevertheless, there is boot 
in the expedition up the heights; although the 
actual source be forever withheld from our 
knowledge, we can trace the progress of the 
river after it has freed itself from the mother 
embrace of the Alpine range. We would not 
presume to lay bare the curtained cradle of his 



251 

strength and might and beauty — we would mod- 
estly inquire into the currents contributory to 
his reservoir of power and might for good in our 
generation. 

The law seems to be well nigh universal that 
genius, at birth, is not beckoned to broad road- 
beds, but has to thread its way, a narrow rill, 
down rough and steep mountain slopes. Our 
old Talmudic sages proverb this observation 
when they say: "Have ye heed unto the chil- 
dren of the poor, for from them shall go forth 
the light of truth." The exceptions to the rule 
prove the law. It is generally from the gloom 
of poverty that the brightness of genius shines 
forth — ease and affluence are not necessarily 
adverse to the formation of character and unto- 
ward to the steeling of ruder metal into elas- 
ticity, but certain it is that, where the divine fire 
is slumbering, the fans of poverty woo the blaze 
to break forth, while the softer zephyrs of afflu- 
ence seem more frequently to be fated to lull 
to sleep the smouldering ember underneath the 
ashes. So many of our greatest men in Israel 
were kissed awake by the light, midst the dusk of 
contracted outward circumstances. And outside 



252 

of Israel, in America, the galaxy of fame is stud- 
ded with stars whose first beam fell not from 
vaulted window of palace, but from the low 
opening of cottage and hut. 

As a rule, it is not the city, again, with its 
luxurious wealth of refining influences, but it is 
the country, apparently poor in all those things 
which make for culture, that wings to flight 
innate poetic inspiration, and voices to preach and 
prophesy natural, sturdy, ethical enthusiasm. 
Most of the poets of America were children of 
the open country — held communion in their early 
days with the laughing brooklet and the growing 
flower, the green meadow, the sweet-scented 
clover, the struggling corn, the swaying wheat, 
the waving forest, the singing bird, the silence of 
wooded dell and the mystery of the tangled 
ravine; not in the bustle and din and confusion 
and distraction of town, where commerce drives 
her chariots and selfishness celebrates her tri- 
umphs, does it seem possible to nursery these 
tender children of light and love, of budding 
song and burning righteousness. In the purer, 
even if poorer, surroundings of country hamlet — 
in its hard school of struggle, in the farmer's 



253 

experience, appear to lie the conditions favorable 
for the growth of wider sympathies and the 
quickening of the mind toward truth and beauty. 
Our lamented friend and teacher adds another 
name to the long roster of men come to eminence 
from self-respecting poverty, who had slaked 
their thirst for refinement, though the wells of 
their early country home promised but a scant 
flow of these living waters. He had indeed the 
gift of Solomon. He understood the speech of 
tree and the sermon of running brook. The dia- 
lect in which the queen bee marshaled her golden 
cuirassed host was not a foreign tongue to him, 
as was not the jargon of the ants legislating for 
their busy clan. He was the bosom friend of 
flower; he had mastered the secret of nature's 
changing robes; he had often been a guest in the 
chamber where are stored the garments, lacy or 
fleecy or ermine-seamed or flower-garlanded, of 
the seasons. Whence to him such wonderful 
knowledge? From his early days, from the 
schooling of the hours when he, a farmer's boy, 
followed the plow and handled the hoe and the 
rake. Yea, no academy in town could have given 
him this understanding; to the last of his days, 



254 

in all that he uttered and in all that he thought, 
"breathed the fresh fragrance, the purity of the 
country sky. Here one of the sources, though 
not the source, of his power; for behind this 
knowledge of the language of nature was his 
mind, a revelation of the divine and, therefore, 
mystery shrouded from human analysis forever. 

The farmer's boy, reading and interpreting 
nature's signs and symbols, became a poet. Hard 
science reads the inscription of the stars in terms 
of a fearful struggle— each planet whirled along 
by the impulse of self-preservation, opposing 
with all of its volume the attraction of other 
heavenly wanderers — and as the planetary system 
is kept agoing by the lubrication of struggle and 
strife, so science, wherever her torch lights up the 
nooks and corners, points us to a battle field — a 
warfare that knows no truce — a bristling camp 
deaf to the sweeter carol of peace, or the consol- 
ing choral intoned after the fray and fight is o'er. 
For the sciences can only analyze, and analysis 
is dissolution — decomposition. A flower before 
the bar of the sciences is calyx, pistil, stamen, 
anther, pollen, carpel. The flower as a whole, 
with its message of beauty and of peace, science 



255 

knoweth not and regardetli not. Where this 
scientific spirit of analysis prevails exclusively 
and points the compass for life's ocean, the mean- 
ing of world necessarily is set in a minor key. 
War unending, never eventing into peace, — 
should this not burden a human soul ? What is 
this universe then but a vast machinery without 
purpose, without harmony even — a chaos spinning 
along, we know not why and we can not tell to 
what issue? 

But what the scientist disregard eth, for it is 
not his concern to pay it court, that the poet 
remembereth, and where he, whose eye is weap- 
oned with telescope or spectroscope or microscope, 
sees but the fearful scars of an endless struggle 
for existence, the poet, his eyes turned inwardly, 
beholds beauty and harmony. The love -tipped 
tongue of the poet sings the anthem of peace. 
The world is not enfolded in darkness, but is 
afloat in an ocean of light. Love's tokens abound 
everywhere, we need but open our eyes to its 
beaming, playful, helpful and hopeful beckon- 
ing. 

The farmer's boy who had learned in the 
schooling of his poor home — poor in externali- 



256 

ties, rich in the eternalities of life — to read 
aright by the key of love and light the hiero- 
glyphics of sky and soil, could not become the 
exponent of a creed of despair, nor the messenger 
of the call that we are doomed. He had to herald 
that view of life and of nature which exults that 
man from good proceeds to better, and that the 
heavens are constantly unfolding new miracles, 
as the fields are intoning new melodies, in 
swelling chorus praising a just and good God 
who leadeth all unto peace and final harmony. 

Professor Swing's creed was that of an opti- 
mist, and one of the roots of his unshaken and 
unshakable optimism is his early life that led him 
to know nature, as few are privileged to know 
her, in the glory of the flowers in the garden and 
the greatness of that mysterious goodness which 
awakens from the seed the blossom and fruit, and 
a^ain husks in the bud and fruit the seed for a 
new life — an unending life. And if his farmer - 
boy days thus led him to solve the equation of 
world in terms of ordered beauty, his book studies 
later confirmed the impression of his early years. 
Know ye that there was not in the whole of 
America a greater classical scholar than he upon 



257 

whose lips Sunday after Sunday the thousands 
hung with hunger of soul and in reverential 
admiration. The farmer boy of our western Ohio 
valley was a great student of Athens and of 
Rome ; knowing his Virgil as but few knew him, 
and his Plato as but few understood him; at 
home in the Roman senate as in the Greek areop- 
agus — ^Eschylus his daily companion and ^Eneas 
the bosom friend of his hours of study! A mir- 
acle, this, almost, and yet truth and fact. Not 
that there are not greater philological scholars in 
this country or elsewhere, but philology is always 
busy with the dry bones. It construes and scans. 
It compares broken syllable with fragmentary 
accent. This " dry-as-dust" method has been the 
curse of classical studies in Germany, and is 
beginning to stretch forth its octopus -like arms 
for new victims in our own schools. For soon 
will arise those among us to trumpet their find of 
an abnormal dative whereto to moor a new phil- 
ological system ! I am afraid lest, while they are 
rattling these dry bones, the living spark of classic 
culture be hidden from their blind eyes. 

Among this tribe of word anatomists Swing 
can not be reckoned. For him classic culture was 



258 

an organic whole, and in the temple of this many- 
mansioned Nautilus he was a reverent minister. 
Greece, the people of beauty, had won his affec- 
tion, and if any there ever was that appreciated 
the graces of the Greek muses, it was he. Beauty 
he had found in furrowed fields, and beauty's echo 
set ahumming his heart's harpstrings, through 
Homer and iEschylus and Sophocles and Demos- 
thenes and Plato and Aristotle. This universe is 
a cosmos, beautiful harmony, is their jubilant 
affirmation. His studies in literature confirmed 
and complemented what the impressions of his 
early days had suggested. His mastership in 
classic lore is the second root of his optimism. 

Poets are always optimists. Pessimism never 
yet has found a poetic voice. Perhaps one or the 
other may have enriched literature with dirge or 
lament. But even benighted Lenau in Germany 
and Leopardi in Italy do not disprove the con- 
tention that the poetic temper is essentially hope- 
ful. The true poets have always clarion ed forth 
the creed that through the apparent strife events 
harmony, that night is prelude and pledge of more 
radiant day. Beauty, and the creed that all 
things are for the good, are factors of one equa- 



259 



tion. Our friend who was at home in " the gar- 
den/' and "the academy" of that wonderful 
people to whom we owe most of the elements of 
our culture — indeed found corroborated by the 
genius of art what the rougher touch of rustic 
tool had before taught him to read in the dia- 
logues of the heavenly company, in the epos and 
lyric written in flowers and in ferns on the 
stretching and waving slopes of his home valley. 

Student of antiquity as he was, Professor Swing 
could not become a pessimist. The farmer boy, 
greatest of classical scholars, had been touched 
by the live coal from the altar dedicated to a 
belief in progress toward ultimate harmony, and 
in the intrinsic essential goodness and beauty of 
life, and in the unfolding purpose of God through 
individual experience, and His guidance of the 
nations across the span of the ages. 

That as a theologian the man so prepared 
would not make of religion a mere archaeological 
museum of antediluvian specimens stands to 
reason. Loyal he was to the last to the church 
of his early days. Not that he treasured the 
dead formulae of creed as unbroken vases of truth, 
but he became the mouthpiece and translator 



260 

for thousands of what is and was the most 
valuable possession of his sect. Strange it is, but 
nevertheless one may say it without fear of con- 
tradiction, it was the suspected heretic who 
brought about the recognition by an ever -increas- 
ing multitude of thinking men and women of 
the best his mother church had been the guar- 
dian of. 

Say whatever you will about Calvinism; say 
that it is somber and suspicious of men ; that it is 
narrow and uncharitable, — this one pretension 
history verifies, and those that are free from bias 
must own that Puritan texture is woven of a strong 
moral fiber; that in the hard discipline of life, of 
self- discipline, curbing alike his love and his pas- 
sions, the Puritan trains himself to be true to the 
supreme and eternal law — " Thou oughtest." In 
the ungainliest garble of the Calvinistic creed, 
there is, to him who looks beneath the surface, 
stored away a wealth of ethical dower which softer 
creeds and less cramped definitions lack, or at 
least are not as insistent to emphasize. 

In this sense, the farmer boy of the Ohio valley, 
the student of the Miami University, the classical 
scholar, the poet of the world of beauty, devel- 



261 

oped to be perhaps the most loyal son of the church 
which first led him to God's altars and taught him 
to stammer the sacred words: God, love and 
immortality and Savior. Through all of his later, 
as of his earlier sermons, rings and runs an ethical 
spirit, bold and deep and sweet withal. And 
when he found that his church was apt to cling 
to externals and sacrifice the eternal verities of its 
historic mission, of his own resolution he left his 
parental communion, but it was with a heavy 
heart. He himself, perhaps, was not fully con- 
scious of the gap, which widened as the years 
lengthened, between him and his early religious 
affiliations. It was not he, at all events, that 
delighted in the breach. Swing is the exponent 
of the inner forces quickening within the Puritan 
form of presentation, and as an iconoclast, if 
iconoclast he be, he belongs to those, — as Oliver 
Wendell Holmes said of Emerson — that have no 
hammer. He removed the idols with such tender 
touch that the very removal seemed an act of wor- 
ship and of reverence. The prophet may be 
weaponed with hammer — the poet is with harp. 
Which w^ill succeed ? Who knoweth ? Each one 
has mission and scope and duty and call, but cer- 



262 

tain it is that the harp's invitation will be more 
readily accepted than the hammer's clank, and 
that the softer transmission and the tenderer transi- 
tion will be less of shock than the bold surgeon's 
knife which cuts atwain the new-born child from 
the old yet loving mother. 

The poet sang the fulfillment of the prophecy 
of his own religious youth in tones so sweet that 
none knew, and perhaps he not himself, that idols 
were falling and altars were crumbling, that a 
new world was rising — and still it was he who 
sang the birth song of this new world which nec- 
essarily is the burial song of the old, but in the 
angel's measure, " Gloria in Excehis, peace on earth 
to men of good will!" 

As a theologian, Swing merely carried out his 
poetic mission; he was the reformer who con- 
ciliated, led on but did not estrange — he was 
the focal point where two worlds met, each 
receiving from him rich tribute of love, rever- 
ence, light, but each hearing from his lips the 
call for new and higher possibilities. It is often 
thought by many who are thoughtless, that lib- 
eralism, to be liberalism, must be negative; that 
the true liberal must deny God, Providence, 



263 

immortality. And it is often deemed strange, if 
not an inconsistency, by men who are not Chris- 
tians and never have been under the influence of 
an early Christian education, that liberal men in 
the Christian pulpit will continue to speak of 
the Christ and will not cease laying the immor- 
telles of reverent affectionate love at the feet of 
the thorn-crowned prophet of Nazareth. Such 
pseudo-liberalism of mere denial betrays only 
the ignorance of him who professing it in self- 
sufficient conceit would criticise as inconsistent or 
disloyal the positive assertions of others, who, to 
say the least, are as liberal as he — yea, more lib- 
eral than he, because, while he does not under- 
stand, they do understand that the pathway of 
progressive truth is evolution and not revolution. 
Is there so much new truth, after all? The 
unfolding process of liberalizing is, indeed, but a 
process of deepening and broadening the old 
river, which at first, indeed, was a narrow rill r 
but is, even in the moment of its juncture with 
the ocean, still the child of the earlier days and 
of the distant mountain peak. The Rhine is one 
from his Gothard birthplace to the Holland 
burial place — is one, if narrow at first and broad 



264 

at last — is one throughout the length of his 
winding course. And so is the current of truth 
and liberal unfolding of truth but the sweep of 
one stream. Truth digs its own new channels 
and feeds them from the parental stream. 

We do not announce a new truth — we preach 
the old truth, if possible deepened and broad- 
ened and burnished and purified. But before 
we were, the prophet had professed. It was not 
we that found or formulated the announcement 
of the better life ; Isaiah and his school had 
sounded it before we were born. All the prin- 
ciples of society to be re- constituted to-day are 
contained in the sermon of Isaiah and his like. 

Historical continuity is the condition of lib- 
eral, truly liberal, work for fruitage. This con- 
dition the liberal may not disregard if his labor 
be other than the mere removing of ruins and 
the making of room for others. In this spirit 
our poet preacher of beauty plowed and planted. 
As a poet he could not make the universe equal 
to a tantalizing zero, or a negative. He read its 
higher value as the revelation of God ; without 
attempting to define God or to confine him, he 
found him in the play of those wonderful forces 



265 

round about us. And in the steps by which 
humanity scaled the heights and arrived at its 
present position, he recognized the working of 
him, not ourselves, making for righteousness. 
He 

" Doubted not that thro' the ages one increasing purpose 

runs, 
And the thoughts of men are widen' d with the process of 

the suns." 

The poet must be God-intoxicated, and God- 
intoxicated was Swing. His liberalism therefore 
was of true fiber. Atheist is not liberal. Atheist 
at best is the scavenger that removes mud and 
dirt and filth. But to plant the flowers more is 
needed than the dung-hill and what the dung- 
hill holds. To woo the flower into beauty there 
needs much more than the phosphates — there 
needs the seed of the flower. Has atheism ever 
scattered seed or ripened fruit? It owns what 
the garbage box can furnish and nothing more. 

Yea, the truest, the most liberal men are God- 
intoxicated. Many churches may idol a God that 
is not God. If atheism is content to be protest 
against this fetichism one may bear with it, 
though not with its illiberal arrogance ! But when 



266 

atheism would lay its heavy hand on the altar of 
nobler truth and on the truer service unto the 
living God, shall sound forth the warning: " Stay 1 
lest thy hand be paralyzed," as was the hand, in 
the story of the Bible, of him who touched impi- 
ously God's own ark. God is. Such is the Avit- 
ness of the ages, their song and prophecy. And 
this God the liberal — this God our Professor 
Swing did preach Sunday after Sunday. This 
beautiful world is not the pi ay -ground of blind 
chance, but is the symbol of a mind all engrasp- 
ing, and the sign of a love all enfolding. 

And this life can not be the end, is the second 
stanza of the poet's lay of hope. This is also the 
assurance of the thinker whose philosophy would 
complete the segment visible into the whole 
circle ! Kant, a second Columbus, in his discovery 
of a new continent in the ocean of thought, a new 
world conception, vaticinates, for all his pure 
reason, of the immortality of soul; as indeed 
every poet has sung it from the heart; every 
troubled and perplexed mind crying out in the 
night for the light has found in this hope comfort. 
Our immortal friend, messenger of beauty, could 
not believe and did not believe that after this life 



267 

there would be less of beauty — or less of light; 
that sun and day would issue into primeval dark- 
ness and gloom. If thought alone had not whis- 
pered the brighter conception, his sense of beauty 
would have led him on to know and feel that the 
stars will twinkle on and the sun will shine on in 
the beyond, wherever we may be. 

But as in his God belief he did not dogmatize, 
so in his immortality belief he did not presume 
to draft the architectural design of that heavenly 
home or to regulate the details of admission or 
exclusion. He was impatient of all such arro- 
gance. His poetic soul uttered its deepest convic- 
tions, and in imparting them to man and world 
he found stay and staff and satisfaction. 

And he believed in Christ. Why should he 
not? Who would deny that that name tokens for 
millions the best that world has ever seen or will 
see? But the Christ he taught was not a fact so 
much as a force. It was not a Christ that once 
had risen from the grave, but a Christ that is still 
rising from the sepulchre. His gospel was not a 
redemption that once had taken place, but a 
redemption that is to take place now, every day. 
The Christ, as preached by Swing, is one way of 



268 

stating the belief, which is certainly ours, in the 
continued life of love in man and through man in 
humanity. Christ to the Christian is the sublime 
formula hallowed by age and haloed by reverence. 
The sterner reformer, perhaps, wielding the ax 
which Abraham laid to the fathers' idols, might 
not have used the old term. But blessed be his 
use of the old term, for had he used another, many 
ears would have been deaf to his message that 
now were opened to the sweeter call of the better 
future through the Christlike life and the Christ- 
like power for all the eternities. And he believed 
that in the personal Jesus was foreshadowed the 
peace of all good to be; he was certain that the 
words which fell from the lips of the prophet of 
Nazareth contained in an intensity shared by the 
words of no other mortal the essence of the 
divine, that the one life in Jerusalem and the one 
death on Golgotha were type of the life of 
humanity and its death unto a newer and nobler 
life. 

Christ is, after all, an ideal. Each one has 
his own God, and each one builds his own Christ. 
I have a Christ in whom I believe, and so have 
you. We may perhaps not call it with a Greek 



269 

name, ki Christ " — we may use the old Hebrew 
word u Messiah 11 ; but whosoever would from the 
imperfect proceed to the perfect, must be filled 
with the messianic spirit! Swing construed for 
himself his Jesus. The critical scholar of the 
German school may, perhaps, have shaken his head 
and had this to object to and that to find fault 
with; and the old orthodox, perhaps, may have 
joined the liberal of the Dutch and German uni- 
versities and pointed out here want of logic and 
there want of definiteness. What mattered that 
to the poet ? The artist painted a Christ so per- 
fect that whoever beheld his face was lifted up 
and inspired. The Christology of Swing, as 
much as anything that he did, belongs to the 
domain of the arts, and Canon Farrar, writing 
his book on Christ, as conceived by artists, might 
add a chapter on the Christ conception of Swing, 
Happy the age that treasures his Christ con- 
ception. Happy the generation that is eager to 
behold this bright ideal outlook and uplook into 
the possibilities of a redemption of man as 
pointed to by the poet whose harp is, alas! now 
broken, and whose song is, alas! now hushed in 
silence. 



270 

The theologian was but the frame of the man, 
and the man eclipsed in his glory the theologian. 
Not that Swing was not yeoman or did not take 
yeoman's part in attack or defense. His rapier 
was sharp at point and at edge, but so good a 
fencer was he that when he thrust the opponent 
felt no pain. 

He was a great humorist, and withal a 
keen satirist. The poet of beauty makes light 
of the faults of men, of the small touches 
of black that at intervals discolor a beautiful 
field of glow. The world is beautiful, and ]ife 
is unto beauty, and God leads the world unto 
justice, and Christ rises from the grave to free 
men from the shackles of slavery. Why, then, 
lose patience with the faults and follies of men ? 
Let us laugh them away. This is the natural 
conclusion of the poet temperament, and so our 
poet preacher laughed the faults of men away 
and the frailties of women. In his polemics, his 
humor and his satire, keen and sharp, and yet 
unoffending, stood him in good stead. Who has 
characterized the ingrained stolidity of current 
theology better than he did even in his last utter- 
ance? It travels in an ox -cart when all other 



271 

thought is whirling along in an electric chariot. 
An ox -cart may be said to circuit the world in 
twenty years — but an electric chariot covers the 
distance in eighty days perhaps, and we would 
rather go with the electric chariot than with the 
slow and steady ox cart. So might be piled one 
upon the other countless quaint but telling effects 
of his humor, all classic in construction and 
barbed to have results which the bolder attack 
of passion can not boast, even in its greatest suc- 
cesses. 

It almost goes without saying that our lamented 
guide and teacher was never so eloquent as 
when he pleaded for justice; that his sympathies 
bubbled forth a crystal spring to refresh those 
that were down-trodden. As Jews, especially, 
owe we a debt of gratitude to his memory. He 
spoke for us when there were but few to speak. 
He pleaded with those who degraded their Chris- 
tianity, who, professing to be Christlike, were 
demonlike, robbed human beings of all that could 
help their humanity. When the tidal wave of 
misery, sent on its errand by Russian cruelty, 
swept across the ocean to our shores, he bade the 
refugees welcome, denouncing with flaming tongue 



272 

a system of church and statecraft which could 
rob of home and almost of life millions of our 
brothers. 

And so he pleaded for the negro in the South , 
for the evicted in Ireland ; wherever persecution 
raised her hydra head and from serpent tongue 
hissed forth its poisoned message of distrust, he 
pleaded for the larger love. 

He was a patriot. His sympathies embraced 
the world, and yet he understood full well that 
the large universe is a great stellar family in 
which each planet has its own orbit aud its own 
elliptic, the ideal being the center, the sun, around 
which each one in its own path, but in company 
with the others, doth travel. So humanity is not 
made up of bare men — it is made up of men in 
historic communities and under historic condi- 
tions; is made up of men that have a family, 
that belong to a town, that are gathered in a 
state, is made up of men that belong to a nation. 
And we belong, this he felt, to the American 
nation — one of the missionary nations of the world 
if she were true to her divine appointment — the 
ensign bearer of liberty and of love. Ah, he 
loved this America and gave the best he had to 



273 

give of thought and of passion to tlie glorious 
banner of the Union. 

His sermons may not have been models of 
theological construction. They may not have 
passed muster where the professor of homiletica 
reviews the exercises of pupils; but children of 
beauty, they carried conviction and thus directed 
aright the better, inclinations of the human heart 
to love humanity and still not to forget country, 
family, state, nation and city. 

And he had also a peculiar mission and posi- 
tion among us in these days of social distrust and 
social strife. We are all inclined to believe that 
the rich man, as such, has been and is in unholy 
league with all the satanic powers of hell. In the 
middle ages it was current superstition that stone 
might be turned to gold by alchemistic practices. 
There may be many to-day that argue that one who 
scales the height where money and wealth are 
found treasured, must be the confederate of Meph- 
istopheles or an adept inMephistophelian arts and 
sciences. It was his mission to show the other 
side of the picture; that not necessarily with wealth 
goes want of character; that wealth is an oppor- 
tunity to which some are true, as poverty is an 



274 

opportunity to which some alone are true. He 
had been schooled in the hard college of a hard 
struggle in early days — struggle for bread, a 
struggle for the bread of life, physical, mental 
and moral, and certainly his sympathy was with 
the stragglers; but as he had risen why should 
not everyone rise? He believed in energy of self. 
He believed in the saving power of sobriety, in 
thrift, and in economy. He did not believe, and 
no one believes, that there is a royal road to ease 
and to peace, which we need but travel to make 
the goal; and thus, as the speaker of a society 
representative in its composition of the best in the 
city, he spoke to Iris friends of their duties to those 
outside of their circle. But to those outside he 
emphasized the knowledge, too, that not, as their 
distrust would lead them to believe, was the mill- 
ion always emblem of want of character or slug- 
gishness of sympathies and of heart. His last 
message to us is indeed an appeal to be true to 
the American principles of liberty, of right and of 
duty — of regard one for the other. Perhaps in 
the din and in the confusion of the battle now 
raging, so sweet a voice as his would have been 
drowned. Perhaps a sterner clarion note is needed 



275 

to stir the rich to action and the poor to reflection; 
to despoil the impostors that now shame the sun- 
shine of our liberty, perhaps a stronger light is 
needed than that soft beaming beacon of love and 
of beauty which was his; but in his swan-song is 
undying accent of truth. It is for us to translate 
that note into the louder appeal of duty and obli- 
gation, would we save our institutions in this hour 
of danger. By those who heed Swing's words 
our country will be lifted on the road to its final 
triumph — the solution of the social problem on a 
basis of equity and justice. 

Is, now, his going from us a loss? It is, and 
it is not. I saw a picture this very summer in 
honor of a great sculptor, charmed on canvas by 
as great an artist of the brush. Surrounded by 
his very works, lies on the bed of glory, the 
couch of death, the sculptor who framed into life 
in chaste marble the children of his genius. His 
breaking eye is kissed in the last lingering light 
of the setting sun by a fair nymph, the latest of 
the artist's productions. What did the painter 
intend when in this wise he gathered around the 
death -bed of the sculptor all the works his fertile 
chisel had executed? Certainly this: the author 
of these children of the muses — their father in 



276 

the flesh — may be transplanted, but they that 
with kiss send off him who made them, the 
nymphs, remain to beautify and inspire, to lift up 
others by informing them of him who hath gone. 
The great and good man's love remains and his 
works abide. Swing is not dead to us. 

He does not belong to that long procession of 
the great and the glorious that I beheld this sum- 
mer on a canvas made prophetic by the imagin- 
ation of a great painter — a long procession of the 
mighty of earth — Alexander, Napoleon, Frederick 
the Great, all riding on in stately pageant over 
the bodies of dead and dying, and above them — 
these monarchs and despots who sent unto death 
the thousands, the very flower of their nations — 
over them with averted face and weeping eyes 
stands the Christ. In this procession Swing has 
no place. He was a man of peace. How beauti- 
ful on the mountain tops are the feet of him w r ho 
announces peace on earth. He belongs to another 
procession over which the Christ hovers, but to 
bless and not to weep; to those that made man 
better, not by the baptism of blood, but by the 
waters of purity and love and devotion and 
beauty. His works remain. He has not gone 
from us, and the immortality he so often put 



l>77 

into sweet rhythm he himself is proof of. Is 
he not immortal? Some one has said, and lias 
said it rightfully. Swing is the great gulf stream — 
a gulf stream of influence. This influence Avill 
travel on as does the gulf stream, speeding be- 
calmed ships, warming cold climates, tempering 
the winds for those in the grasp of a torrid sun, 
but preserving his individuality in the mighty 
flow — in the ebb and the tide of the ocean. A 
gulf stream of influence for the best, for the 
truest, the liberal thought of religion was he; a 
child of the muses, son of beauty, translating the 
speech of nature unto us, and transmitting the 
messages of the ages unto us, foretelling the 
glories of the future, speaking of the rising loye 
of redemption, of the beauty of the household of 
God the Father, the unending life of each and 
all, he is now, as he was in his life, the torch- 
bearer of a better outlook into life, and of a 
broader love to bind man to man, the children of 
one God rising into the glories of one messianic 
kingdom. "Thy kingdom come 1 ' was oft his 
prayer. He has helped make that kingdom 
nearer, more real to us. Blessed be his name. 
nD"i27 p*ns "DT. "The memory of this righteous 
one is a blessing." Amen. 



flDemorial Sermon. 

lpreacbeD at jpl^moutb Cburcb, Cbicago, bs IRev. 5)r. 
tfranfc 1U. Gunsauius. 

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that 
bringeth good tidings, that publisheth peace, that bringeth good 
tidings of good, that publisheth salvation, that sayeth unto Zion, 
Thy God reigneth. — Isaiah lii. 7. 

"We need a line from the most rich and liter- 
ary of the poets of the Hebrew nation to initiate 
in our hearts, and especially in our speech, any 
fitting recognition of the unique and precious 
treasure which our city and our land have lost in 
the death of David Swing. It is necessary, also, 
that it be a verse of that poetry which describes 
the ministry, not so much of a great ecclesiastic 
clad in pontifical robes, or that of an urgent con- 
tender for some revered proposition of belief, as 
that of the prophet who, in the echoes of yester- 
day and the din of to-day, perceives the soft and 
chastened eloquence of to-morrow, if in any way 
the passage may serve as a prelude to our thought 
of him who, for a quarter of a century, stood in 
the twilight, in the name of the ample dawn. 

The words that will accord with our grief and 
harmonize with our grateful sense of what God 



gave this city when he gave us David Swing 
must also be full of a sincere and calm optimism. 
They must radiate with that rapturous faith in 
the triumph of goodness which rang like a vital 
note through all his music. They must carry his 
glowing assurance that the history of man is the 
history of a divine progress. For this faith was 
the sky under which his eye beheld the contest 
of energies divine and diabolic, the eddies in the 
stream of man's life that so often appear to testify 
to a receding river, and, beholding them all, he 
never faltered and never feared. 

Words from any literature that may suit the 
hour when we strew rosemarv on the ^rave of 
David Swing must open the mind toward that 
gateway into the realm of ideas which is called 
the beautiful, for, with him, as with the great 
novelist, " beauty is part of the finished lan- 
guage by which God speaks.' 1 And so I have 
chosen the passage from Isaiah which I have 
read: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the 
feet of him that bringeth good tidings, that pub- 
lisheth peace, that bringeth good tidings of good, 
that publisheth salvation, that sayeth unto Zion, 
Thy God reigneth," 



280 

He himself has said: "There is no tribe or 
race which is not aware of such a something as 
the beautiful." Every race whose stream of 
blood entered or influenced the veins of this prose - 
poet contributed its highest aesthetic instinct 
and commandment unto him. To his spirit, as 
to Emerson's, "beauty was its own excuse for 
bemo;. ,1 He allowed no argument in favor of 
what was ugly; that which was beautiful for him 
needed no apology or praise. All his mind's 
powers ceased to question the right of the beau- 
tiful to be and to rule, at the moment this unfail- 
ing eye found it beautiful ; and, at the instant of 
his discovery that a thing was not beautiful, all 
his own beauty of soul, with playful irony, 
stinging sarcasm, and wealth of moral enthusiasm, 
set itself for its destruction. He went through 
our work- a- day world with a serene faith, like 
that of Keats, that " a thing of beauty is a joy 
forever; 11 and his vision of the immortal life was 
the seer's picture of the survival of the beautiful. 
Throughout his childhood, youth, and for twenty 
years of his public career, he lived in the valley of 
the Ohio, of all valleys the most sure to stimulate 
and enrich this aesthetic sense. All through his 



281 

sermons and essays we find pictures of what 
nature gave to this singularly rich and suggestive 
mind. They were criteria for years to come by 
which beauty miglit be recognized. They were 
facts so fair, and the fancies they inspired were so 
glorious, as to make his pages of essays and ser- 
mons true to nature and the soul in their truest 
moods. The aching seed and the April shower, 
the rich, black valley loam opening its wealth of 
motherhood for the seed, the rose that hesitantly 
met the earliest hour of June with fragrant kisses, 
the bees, gold-corseleted, that live on the lips of 
clover bloom, the long, green lines of corn, the 
yellow, wavelike valley of wheat, the rosy fruit 
of autumn, and the white snows of winter — all 
these come and go, as we think of the youth sit- 
ting by the old fireplace and watching the play 
of splendor in the flame, or, as in the brilliant 
day, he labors or dreams in the field, or, at night 
he broods beneath the white magnificence of stars. 
It was all culture of the sentiment that says, 
u life and conduct must be beautiful." At col- 
lege, this child of Athens, who had been born 
nearer the Ohio than Ilyssus, found his own 
native Greece and wandered along the edge of the 



282 

blue JEgeaii with Socrates and Plato, heard 
Sophocles recite his tragedies and beheld Phidias 
carve the Parthenon frieze ; for he had a singu- 
larly inspiring teacher who, then and there, gave a 
new life and career to this soul who loved the 
beautiful. In his own childhood's home with 
those he loved, he had learned what his whole 
life illustrated, and what Mrs. Browning has so 
often repeated on his lips: 

" The essence of all beauty, I call love; 
The attribute, the evidence, and end; 
The consummation to the inward sense 
Of beauty apprehended from without, 
I still call love." 

But the Greek youth, nursed on Hellenic food, 
was predestined, and now he was reinspired by 
his study of Greek literature and Greek art to be 
the apostle of the beautiful. To him evermore 
the beautiful became good. He found the ethical 
side of beauty. Professor Swing's spirit was too 
spacious and too nearly full- orbed, not to find 
Avithin itself the experience which responded to 
and identified itself with the ebb and flow of the 
tide of life and thought and achievement in all 
the great nations. He had too sincere and truth- 
ful a sense of the imperial value of righteousness, 



283 

not to reflect, at some times very vividly, at all 
times quite faithfully, the quality and message of 
the Hebrew people to mankind. Yet the quality 

of his nature, the attitude of his mind, the method 
of its approach to truth was that of the Greek, 
rather than that of the Hebrew. None knew bet- 
ter than he that God had called these two peoples, 
each to an unique task, in the bringing in of the 
kingdom of God, which, to David Swing and to 
us, means the consummate achieving of the dream 
of civilization. The Hebrew wrought for right- 
eousness; for this the nation was called to be a 
royal priesthood. In quite another manner, as 
characteristic of God's providence, as truly em- 
phasizing the gift of the genius of the Greek, did 
Jehovah call the Greek to a royal priesthood also. 
He called the Greeks to be an intellectual aris- 
tocracy, as he called the Hebrews to be a spiritual 
aristocracy, and both did he call to minister unto 
all humanity. In each case the unique and 
precious stream flowed between banks of patri- 
otic conviction. 

The Greek was called to be an artistic nation ; 
his Sinai revealed the law of beauty. God called 
the Hebrew to be "an holy nation;''' his Sinai 



284 

revealed the laws of righteousness. It is certainly 
true that David Swing was a preacher of the mes- 
sage of the Hebrew — righteousness; but he ap- 
proached it, he loved it, he championed it as a 
Greek. To him righteousness was the moral side of 
beauty, and, looking upon his career and its gra- 
cious influence, we repeat the Hebrew's words: 
" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of 
him that bringeth good tidings.' 7 It was this Greek 
spirit that made him able to so speak the "good 
tidings' 7 that his preaching was literature. He 
knew the holiness of beauty. 

So great, however, was the moral uplift of his 
nature toward a perception of and a yearning for 
the supreme beauty — "the beauty of holiness, 1 ' as 
the Hebrew poet names it — that he was always 
telling us: "It must be inferred that there is a 
moral aesthetics which outranks the physical 
forms of beauty. The moral kingdom does not 
destroy the other empire. It is the old story of 
1 empire within empire,' 4 wheel within wheel,' but 
with this caution that moral beauty is the greater 
of the two kingdoms. Moral aesthetics is what 
our age now needs." This is what the Hebrew 
singer had in mind, when he sang: "O worship 



285 

the Lord, in the beauty of holiness.' 1 To this 
the heart and eloquence of David Swing re- 
sponded for eight and twenty years in our great 
materialistic city; but it was a Greek, clad with 
the splendor of a Christian knight, who uttered 
his plea with all that sobriety of statement, that 
artistic regard for the beautiful which made him 
the finest essayist who has stood in the pulpit of 
the nineteenth century. As we hear some more 
Hebraic gospeler utter his Ezekiel-like oracles to 
some valley of dry-bones, or listen to some evan- 
gelist or reformer hurl his warnings or maledic- 
tions against iniquity, remembering this sane and 
refined soul, we say with that most Grecian of 
recent anthologists: 

" Where are the flawless form, 
The sweet propriety of measured phrase, 

The words that clothe the idea, Dot disguise, 
Horizons pure from haze, 

And calm, clear vision of Hellenic eyes? 

" Strength ever veiled by grace; 
The mind's anatomy implied, not shown; 
No gaspings for the vague, no fruitless tires, 
Of those fair realms to which the soul aspires." 

The unique and unimagined value of such a 
man, holding so high a place in the moral culture 



286 

of this community from 1867 to 189-4, can not be 
overestimated. When he came hither, filled with 
the results of years of scholarly investigation, 
calm with the vision given only to men of genuine 
idealism and cultured faith, fearless in the superb 
equipment of his learning, and trusting the whole 
world and its interests to the influence of truth, 
as only the scholar and the Christian does, we 
were just out of the thunder and moral dissipation 
of a civil war; huge fortunes had come as by 
magic to men who scarcely considered the ideal 
values in opportunity and influence which lie in 

a single dollar; we were at the beginning of a 

© ■ © © 

movement, in an industrial age, which has reaped 
enormous profits by the employment and direc- 
tion of human beings along the ways of material 
progress; a city, draining its unexampled vitality 
from a vast empire, was rising like a huge vision 
before the cupidity and greed, the hope and 
reason of the West. What a gift of God it was 
that then there came to you a soul, a human heart 
cultured to the perception of the valuelessness of 
mere money and the supreme value of great ideas 
and noble sentiments, a brain that was certain of 
nothing so surely as that righteousness is moral 



287 

beauty, and that this beauty is, or ought to be, 
supreme! David Swing, at the opening of an age 
of gigantic material advancement, through years 
of persistently regnant materialism, in a city of 
tremendous practicalism,has been one of the most 
heroic and noble figures of our time ; for he has 
been the scholar in the pulpit, the Christian in 
society, the philosopher in our literature, and the 
beloved citizen of the ideal commonwealth in all 
our public and private policies. He has em- 
bodied in himself the mission of the Christian 
scholar. 

What is the Christian scholar? The Greek en- 
souled with the genius of Hebrewdom. 

He is the one being to whom life must always 
appear both as a vision and as a duty. The order 
of progress, now and ever, is, first, u the new 
heavens," and then, "the new earth, wherein 
dwelleth righteousness." Life, as a vision into 
which have been gathered every noble idea, every 
true sentiment, and every worthy purpose, with 
all their victory and their hope — a vision awfully 
grand with the announcement that it hangs in the 
heavens to be obeyed, glorified with the assurance 
that it is to be realized on the earth — this is the 



288 

truest gift which years of instruction and study 
may give to the scholar's soul. The scholar is 
the deliverer of men. He is the sworn acquaint- 
ance of something still more venerable than their 
revering age, something more ancient than their 
prudence, and into their solemn cautiousness con- 
cerning tradition it is his to introduce the per- 
manent which declines, because it needs not, their 
endeavor to preserve its pedigree or to enforce 
silence. The scholar sees the reality beneath all 
appearance, and it is his prerogative and fortune 
to furnish to the untrained his trained eye, that 
they too may know that there is a sky above and 
a river-bed beneath the flow of things. Where- 
ever such a soul goes, there goes hope. He has 
had the experience of nature in his science, the 
experience of man with ideas and principles in 
his study of history, the experience of man with 
himself in his fearless study of the soul; and " ex- 
perience worketh hope/ 1 To the hopeless man 
who has seen his flag go out of sight as it fell 
beneath the feet of wrong, he comes, to lead him 
out of the atmosphere of momentary defeat to a 
larger induction, and to bid him up and on. 
Wherever such a soul goes, there goes resolute- 



289 

ness and self-respect. Sucli a man, prophet and 
oracle, has been David Swing. 

It was the Christian scholars message of the 
infinite beautifulness and desirableness of truth 
which he came to give. 

His very manner and voice, his presence and 
attitude, made his message more powerful as a 
rebuke to our pretentiousness and self-satisfac- 
tion, and a stimulus to our affection for high ideals 
and God-like sentiments. He seemed to brood 
wistfully, and often, with the whole statement 
before him, carefully written out, he paused, hes- 
itating to handle truth which had cost so much 
and was so dear, with anything but reverent 
care. He had worked an immense deal of ore 
into coin before he rose to speak, and he knew 
its worth too well, and man's need too surely, to 
jingle it before human cupidity as a common 
thing. But before he concluded his address, it 
was all our own. 

" He spoke, and words more soft than rain 
Brought the age of gold again." 

That voice filled its strange stops with the pecul- 
iar quality of his view of life, the "sweet rea- 
sonableness " of his message, the native music of 



290 

his melodious soul ; and no melody of earth 
ever seemed so varied in harmony or so increas- 
ingly beautiful as its utterance. When I heard 
him, I confess myself to have been under such a 
spell as only the finest orators may create, while I 
was saying to myself that this is not oratory at all. 
His was the eloquence of self-command, of affec- 
tionate confidence in his latest-loved truth, whose 
beauty he was then showing to us, lit up by a per- 
fect faith that the angel he modestly championed 
would easily make her way in the world. 

In the hour of his supreme power what re- 
sources he had, what forces came into his grasp! 
He had a finer humor than Beecher; it was radi- 
ant atmosphere, never tumultuous with stormful 
glee, but kindly, genial, an air in which the 
laughter rippled o'er the soul as the water moves 
when a swallow flies close to a quiet pool. In 
that radiance, buds of thought opened, seemingly 
without his touch, and unripe purposes grew 
golden in the warmth and glow. He had per- 
fect mastery of sarcasm and irony. They never 
mastered him. In these rare moments of super- 
lative power his good humor kept the sharp 
edges from cutting a hair, w 7 hile the blades 



291 

Hashed everywhither. Just at such an instant 
in his appeal, sober common -sense, the strongest 
faculty, or set of faculties which he possessed, 
uttered its behest, while fancy and memory 
played about the message as sweet children 
about a gracious queen. More than any or all 
of these, was the man who stood so quietly there 
— the dear friend, the high-minded advocate of 
the good, the true and the beautiful — urging us to 
a security of faith, a sanctity of life, and a rea- 
sonableness of conduct, like his own. Thus he 
became his own best argument. It was the elo- 
quence, not of speech, but of beautiful character. 
What Lowell quotes to describe the speech of 
the Concord seer may be quoted to describe him: 

11 Was never eye did see that face, 

"Was never ear did hear that tongue, 
Was never mind did mind his grace, 
That ever thought the travail loog, 
But eyes, and ears, and every thought, 
Were with his sweet perfections caught." 

It is often said that Professor Swing was not 
a reformer, and that he possessed none of the 
qualities and, therefore, had nothing of the career 
of those heroic men who root up ancient and 
wide-branched wrongs and create a reign of right- 



292 

eousness. He was a philosopher, not a trans- 
former of institutions and laws. The fact is 
that such a soul's contribution to the evolution 
of goodness in the world is always of the high- 
est importance. Ideas will always gather cham- 
pions. Such a service as his is too likely to be 
underestimated, because it is so fundamental and 
so great. With a strange hesitancy as to accept- 
ing the conclusions of Darwin, our preacher's 
mental method was that of an evolutionist. He 
trusted the development of involved ideas. The 
revolutionist always attracts more attention and 
offers the picture of a more easily understood 
courage. But there would never be a revolu- 
tionist, if the evolutionist, whose plea is reason 
and not a sword, whose appeal is to ideas that 
render battles useless, were heard. 

In the thick of the fight for some instantly 
demanded righteousness, David Swing Avas not a 
Luther, fiery -tongued and dust- covered as the 
fray went on; he was rather an Erasmus, the 
temperate, calm scholar who had already whetted 
the sword for a Luther's strong hands and held 
its fine blade ready for his service. But he was 
never beset with the cautiousness of Erasmus. 



293 

No Erasmus would ever have held the moral sense 
of the same community for all these years. He 
was Erasmus and Melancthon in one. His shy 
and clear-eyed soul reminds one of our own 
Emerson, whom Wendell Phillips, in the angry 
warfare where he was using Emerson's ideas as 
fine Damascus blades, called " that earthquake 
scholar at Concord," of whom also Lowell has said : 
" To him more than to all other causes together did 
the young martyrs of our civil war owe the sus- 
taining strength of thoughtful heroism that is so 
touching in every record of their lives." From his 
benign place of culture David Swing has sup- 
plied epigrams which have become battle cries to 
many souls, who, in the turmoil, are fighting the 
good fight, to whose successful issue he made the 
contribution of victorious ideas. He lit the bea- 
con and has kept it burning, so that, in the con- 
test of right against wrong, of intelligence against 
ignorance, of nobility of character against the 
vulgarity which exhibits its coat of arms or its 
wealth, the soldier of truth might not mistake a 
foe for a friend, or lose the path of triumph. 
His was the thinker's heroism — the finest in the 
life of man. He feared not the consequences of 



294 

any truth ; he feared only a comfortable lie, or a 
popular blunder. He was more than a Falkland 
with a Matthew Arnold to praise him, and to for- 
get the lonely hours of Sir John Eliot and Hamp- 
den. He never cried peace where there was no 
peace. He always, somehow, got his word of 
cheer to the beleaguered army of truth, even if he 
were not with them at the hour of their captivity. 

With the thinker's courage he trusted to the 
predestinated dominion of ideas, not only the 
fortunes of society, but also the future of the com- 
monwealth and the hope of man. Not the light- 
ning that smites and cleaves, still less the thunder 
that rolls and amazes, his was the soft and per- 
vasive sunshine, bearing the secret fate of the 
summer and traveling with the molten snows, 
falling silently upon the icefields that gleam and 
shimmer as they slowly drip into the harvests of 
the future. 

He has lived for living ideas and generous 
sentiments, the exquisitely true statements of 
which are so generously left on his pages that 
they are sure to be in the hearts and on the lips 
of the men of to-morrow, and all this because of 
his serene faith in the native supremacy of the 



295 

good, and the true, and the beautiful. This 
exalted and broad faith has given him breadth of 
interest and largeness of theme, and an unerring 
touch, as he has dealt with life's variety of prob- 
lems. Above controversies, he has been so lofty 
as to provide for controversialists who would fain 
find the truth, the keys which unlock her treasure- 
houses. Our text describes him — " beautiful on 
the mountains," where a large view enabled him 
to see valleys of life running into one another, 
roadways, seemingly opposed in direction, gradu- 
ally and surely tending toward each other. Often- 
times he would come down close to the hearts of 
the mistaken and debating searchers for truth, 
and usually he came to show them that each pos- 
sessed some truth or ideal needed by the other, 
and that the pathway to righteousness and God 
was wide enough for them both. 

Such a supreme faith in the good and the 
true and the beautiful made his eye quick to dis- 
cern its presence or absence in all places. He 
was therefore a wise appreciator of art, in which 
this Greek loved to behold a Hebrew lesson on 
righteousness, a penetrative and comprehensive 
critic of literature, whose treasures lay at his 



296 

feet, a patriotic and sympathetic thinker in pol- 
itics, which he would have baptized with Chris- 
tian idealism, a true and broad-minded champion 
of religion, which he knew to be the noblest concern 
of all human life. One could not read with him 
"The Grammarian's Funeral 1 ' of Robert Brown- 
ing, and see the face of David Swing, as he lived 
and toiled with the scholarship which made the 
renaissance victorious, without thinking, if he 
had actually been one of that age, he would have 
found such a grave also. But our Professor was 
more than one who "ground at grammar." 

The mighty renaissance with which he had 
to do, and in the study of which the importance 
of his personality, its spirit and its gentle strength 
appear, has proved itself the greatest event in 
the history of religious thought since the Refor- 
mation. The Oxford movement, under the fascin- 
ating leadership of Newman, never reached 
beyond the English and American Episcopal 
churches and the Roman Catholic church, in 
whose fold the leader found a home. Aft that 
hour there was afoot, under Maurice, Kingsley 
and Stanley, a movement in England, inspired 
by Coleridge, fast putting on robes of poetry in 



297 

the lines of Tennyson and Browning, which, at 
a later hour, was sure to find responses here in 
the hearts and minds of such men as Beecher, 
Phillips Brooks, and David Swing. Earlier than 
either of his great contemporaries, Professor Swing 
saw that this was the renaissance of the Greek 
spirit in theology. 

A lover of that ancient Rome where Greek 
literature still ruled her orators and poets, our 
Professor never could sympathize with mediaeval 
and theological Rome. The Almighty God and 
his government, as treated by the theologians of 
Rome, for nearly two thousand years, whether 
Catholic or Protestant, were only a huge Roman 
emperor exalted to omnipotence and an empire 
where Roman justice and power alone were 
supreme. Orthodoxy had been partial to these 
thinkers, for Rome had been the seat of ortho- 
doxy. Orthodoxy had, therefore, been fragment- 
ary; outside of her accredited formularies were 
other truths quite as necessary for a full statement 
of Christianity. For example, the view of the 
atonement called orthodox was sympathetic with 
ideas of divine government borrowed from the 
Roman government; and as that government's 



298 

view of justice and humanity was not exhaustive, 
so that theory of the atonement was partial, if 
not untrue. Against this, as well as against 
views of the inspiration of scripture and the the- 
ology which dogmatized as to the fate of the 
wicked, the Greek spirit rose in him to utter its 
word; not to fight, for this is not the business of 
ideas, but to utter its life as a flower expresses 
itself in fragrance and beauty, to initiate a gen- 
uine renaissance, a re-birth of hidden and for- 
gotten truth. The whole movement of theology 
in the nineteenth century has been a re- uttering 
of this Greek spirit. Augustine, Athanasius, and 
Cyril of Jerusalem have yielded to Origen, Chry- 
sostom, and Clement of Alexandria. Our Greek 
poet-preacher, uttering his too long delayed truth 
in preachers' prose, has proved himself a worthy 
successor of him who was called "golden- 
mouthed' 1 at Antioch, and him who was named 
by Jerome, "the greatest master of the church 
after the Apostles." 

As Emerson left the church whose life he 
inspired as has no theologian of our age, so David 
Swing retired from what was a battlefield, to give 
all sects the benignant and untroubled illumina- 



299 

tion which was the radiance of his soul. With- 
out the impulsive eloquence and massive move- 
ment of Beecher, but with more than Beecher's 
calm and propriety of utterance; without Phillips 
Brooks' vision of the whole human heart and his 
abounding religiousness of devotion to Jesus of 
Nazareth as the revelation of God, David Swing 
performed a service like theirs, to all religious 
interests, in emancipating the mind of our time 
from the establishments of piety and the formu- 
laries of a partial faith. 

Such men are always called heretics. The 
truth is, they are the men of faith. They are 
those who do not believe less than the reactionary 
who would try them, or the conservative who 
distrusts them; but they believe more — not the 
same things and more things beside — but they 
believe more. When David Swing denied that 
God was limited to the methods of government 
mentioned by the Westminster Confession, he 
had a larger and more truly evangelical belief in 
God than his opposer. To-day the church of his 
"boyhood comes to his grave, and one of her most 
eloquent orators embalms with odorous spices the 
heretic of yesterday. Intolerance is the only rad- 



300 

ical unbelief. No man has so little real faith as 
he who believes that God's truth needs his police 
duty to keep it alive, or to protect it from being 
stolen. 

When these men first spoke, critical wiseacres 
were pointed to the ruddy east; but they answered 
that some one's house was on fire, and forthwith 
they sought to extinguish the flame. It was the 
dawn — inextinguishable and glorious. Fear- 
lessly, that movement which reddens the whole 
Orient may be trusted. It will journey on to 
complete the noontide. Looking at it, one sees 
that it is God's presence in man's deeper, larger 
faith. 

"And on the glimmering limit far withdrawn, 
God made himself an awful rose of dawn." 

His interest in theology sprang from such a 
root as gave him a profound interest in the prob- 
lem of society. He confronted it with the same 
principles, asked of its dogmatists the same ques- 
tions, and answered its demands with the same 
faith. Just as he declined to believe in and 
preach a gospel of despair which left a less lov- 
ing God than Christ on the throne of the universe, 
so he declined to believe that the best civilization 



301 

will permit capital to grow rich by child -labor, 
and lawlessness to destroy public order. His 
unmoved faith in God, and man under God's love, 
is at the basis of a dream of a better society, just 
as it was at the basis of a truer theology. 

The idea of God was Christianized in his 
deeper confidence; the same transformation must 
come to the life of man here below. As the vis- 
ion of Christ, saying: u He that hath seen me 
hath seen the Father," changed the conception of 
God, and made man a worshiper of the uni- 
versal Fatherhood, so Christ in the life of man 
will change methods and bring about a universal 
brotherhood. What makes for a true theology 
makes for a trut. sociology. "No Christ-like 
soul," he says, "will consent to walk along 
through life or to heaven without wishing to 
drag all society with it to the sublime destiny." 

This deep faith made him the lover of men 
whose personal creeds were divergent from his 
own and whose methods he could not have 
adopted. It was enough that they were bringing 
in the better day. Full of admiration for the 
philosopher and scientist, he nevertheless said: 
"It is not Comte or Tyndall who must plead 



302 

with the begrimed miners of England; it is 
Moody and Sankey." He could trust any man 
whose soul was acquainted with the large truths 
of the Nazarene, because he trusted them. "The 
truths of Christ's reform," he said, " possess that 
impulse which comes from their lying outspread, 
not only in the light of earth, but in that of 
eternity." 

Perhaps his proclaimed vision of Christ was 
not inclusive of all the lines which love and wor- 
ship have made for yours; but I never heard 
him more earnest than when he said to one who 
wished to substitute a paganism for Christianity : 
"Even could we draw from the classics or Hindoo 
world a complete definition of manhood, we 
would seem to need a Christ to enable the human 
race to realize the dream betrayed in the defini- 
tion." "The cross is only an essential prelude to 
the new life." Perhaps his humor lit up the true 
features of some doctrine so dear to you that you 
mistook the kindly light for his repudiation of 
truth. Doubtless he saw more clearly those 
truths of which little is said in creeds; but this, 
at least, is true: the confession of faith he per- 
petually uttered and preached is made up of the 



303 

sweetest hopes and the most frequently spoken 
commandments which moved the lips of Jesus 
Christ. 

Of unique and pervasive beautifulness of 
nature, of large and living scholarship, of most 
thorough religiousness of mind, of genuine Ameri- 
can fiber and faith, he lived with us and died 
among us, the most beloved of our citizens, if not 
the most distinguished; the most poetic of the 
prophets who has not left his life in his verse; 
the most genial and philosophical of American 
essayists, who was always a priest of goodness ; 
our soul's friend, to whom we say: " Hail and 
farewell. 11 



IRev, Gboe- C. Iball'e tribute* 

A great sorrow lias fallen upon many hearts 
this week. A former pastor of this church has 
been taken to his rest. A beautiful and sunny 
life has come to a peaceful close, and the memo- 
ries and sweet associations of a long ministry now 
gather about an open grave. Professor David 
Swing was too well-known a figure among you to 
need any description or eulogy from my lips ; but I 
would not do justice either to my own or to 
your feelings, were I not to pay a tribute to the 
love and gentleness of the life that has passed 
away. It is most striking, that, in all that is 
being said of Professor Swing, the remarkable 
intellectual gifts which were his are passed over so 
largely, in order that men may emphasize again 
and again his love and sweetness. These quali- 
ties of his were not born of ruddy health and 
prosperous condition. Pain was his familiar 
companion, and carefully had he to watch him- 
self that his work might not suffer, but he seldom 
spoke much of himself. His high classical attain- 
ments and complete familiarity with the Latin 



305 

poets are rarely met with to-day, but lie spoke 
very modestly of them, and they were only means 
to the end he had in view. His message was 
of a full sweet forgiveness through a Father's 
redeeming love, and he couched that message in 
words of singular beauty, and illustrated it from 
an imagination quick to all the perfect in nature 
or in art. There was Christian refinement in 
every finished product of his pen, and the glow 
of a loving heart was felt through all his periods. 
No one was more adept in the art of gentle satire, 
but it was chastened and controlled as few men 
so possessed succeed in controlling their gift. A 
charming humor played over much that he wrote, 
but it only seemed to enhance the seriousness 
and depth that will make his writings a fund 
of moral inspiration for all time. 

Professor Swing saw clearly. His mind worked 
rapidly and thoroughly. He did not permit him- 
self to become entangled in his own explanations. 
He saw many things a good while ago that men 
are only now dimly perceiving. He gave his 
message, found his place, and leaves now a great 
city incalculably poorer for his departure. He was 
a splendid citizen, and loved Chicago. In a con- 



306 

versation with him, had not long ago, I lamented 
some things that make our streets unattractive. 
He acknowledged the weakness, but with that 
characteristic hopefulness that made him so 
strong in doing his work, he said: "You are 
young. You Avill see our work tell on these 
streets as it gradually tells on the character they 
figure forth." He had great faith in the power 
of love and in the receptivity of the human heart 
for its healing power. He believed in love lived 
out, not simply professed, and, if sometimes impa- 
tient with creeds, he seldom lost his power of 
sympathy with the heart behind a creed, no mat- 
ter how distasteful the creed mi^ht be to him. 

Nothing was more noticeable about Professor 
Swing than the extreme quietness and unobtru- 
siveness of his manner. He did not seek notori- 
ety, nor did he seem much to value praise. He 
desired only opportunity to give his message and 
to serve. And he served faithfully. He was a 
pastor to many hundreds who had no more claim 
upon him than that they had read his sermons or 
knew his name. 

Into many houses of mourning he came with 
his own personal message of love and hope and 



307 

confidence. He thought kindly of all, and his 
gentle judgments were the sincere outcome of 
his charitable view of life and men. This quiet 
confidence in the real underlying goodness of 
humanity was no mere sentiment with him, but 
was born of a profound conviction that God was 
really redeeming humanity, and that into the 
poorest, meanest life there was being inbreathed a 
diviner and a nobler being. This was the ground 
conception of his philosophy and his theology. 
Not that he overlooked sin or underestimated 
unrighteousness and wickedness, but that he fixed 
his eye upon a redeeming love shed abroad in 
the hearts of men through the message of Christ's 
gospel. Indeed, his heart was often stirred by the 
treachery and unrighteousness that surrounded 
him, but he would soon find rest again in the 
hope of the future and his confidence in the final 
outcome. In speaking of this to me one day, he 
said with much impressiveness: "Why should 
one judge life by its lower phases, or one meas- 
ure your faith by its low water-mark of depres- 
sion ? I may lose confidence in humanity for 
one hour out of the twenty-four, but it is the 
other twenty-three hours of faith in humanity, 
in which I will do any work for it." 



308 

He often spoke of the necessity of living on 
the level of our nobler inspirations, and, amidst 
the trials and difficulties, many of which were 
unknown to all but an inner circle, he wonder- 
fully succeeded in keeping his teaching keyed 
up to a very high pitch of lofty inspiration born 
of a divine faith. In his later days he had a 
certain sense of loneliness. Many of those whom 
he had known, and known intimately, had passed 
before him through the silent portals that have 
closed forever on his own spirit. And he had 
planned to associate with him, this winter, a few 
of the younger men, who gladly would have 
gathered about him to share his experience and 
learn from him. But the Great Master desired 
it otherwise, and his spirit is lonely no more, 
but rejoices in the fellowship of unnumbered 
believers and is ever present with his Lord. 

The lessons of his life are many and very 
sacred. Many of you will lay them to heart as 
you learn them from lips more competent than 
mine to interpret them to you, but the broad, full 
message of a saving, redeeming love, working 
out, in sacrifice and praise, its mission and its 
task, is the lesson he would most have you, mem- 



309 

bers of the church to which he once ministered, 
lay most to heart. He believed in Christ as the 
friend of the friendless, the teacher of the igno- 
rant, the Savior of the lost, and the hope of a 
despairing world. It was as Christ was formed 
in him the hope of glory, that he became a teacher 
of his time, and a prophet of a fullness of salva- 
tion to be worked out through Christ. 



{Tribute of IRev* 2>r, lb* W. Gbomas, 

pastor of tbe people's Gburcb. 

In whose heart are the highways of Zion, 

Passing the valley of weeping, they make it a place of springs. 

— Ps. lxxxiv. 5-6. 

It can never cease to be a strange and impress- 
ive fact, that the years of man on earth are so 
few. He comes not to stay ; but to " pass through " 
this wonderful world. He would gladly linger 
beneath its skies, rest by its streams, work and 
study longer upon its great tasks and problems. 

But he is hurried al6ng from youth to age; 
from cradle to tomb. The countless generations 
of the past have looked out upon the same conti- 
nents and oceans — wandered and wondered 
beneath the same stars ; have laughed and wept, 
loved and sorrowed — "passed through' 1 this scene 
and mystery profound — passed on to the infinite 
beyond; and of all the millions living now 
soon all will be gone, and other lives will have 
come to fill their places. 

Such a strange order and conditioning of the 
conscious life of man, naturally, necessarily, gives 
to his thought and work a forward looking and 



311 

movement. He can not, if he would, go back; 
the path behind him is cut off; closed to himself, 
but open for others. Only in memory may one 
live over the years that are gone. History may 
prolong the backward vision of what has been in 
the long past; but one can not be a child, a youth 
again — can not stand again in the glad years that 
are gone. The only path upon which the feet 
can move lies before, stretches on into the ever 
strange and new of the coming to-morrow. 

Xot alone is it impossible to recall the years 
that are gone, but impossible to change them, to 
do anything to make them other or different from 
what they were. When one reads of the wars, 
the slaveries, the persecutions, the wrongs and 
sufferings of centuries ago, the soul rises up in 
protest, and would gladly go back and fight the 
battles over again; rescue a Joan of Arc or a 
Bruno from the stake, or change the sad ending 
of a William of Orange. But man stands pow- 
erless to undo the sad yesterdays of his world; 
he can atone for his own nearer wrongs only by 
making better each to-day. 

This cutting off of the past, this impossibility of 
going back and undoing what was, holds man's 



312 

whole life and being in what is, and projects it 
into the larger possibilities of what may be, 
gives a forward looking to those "in whose hearts 
are the highways ofZion," that, "passing through 
the valley of weeping, they may make it a place 
of springs." 

And when the mystery of this strange fact of 
the few passing years of man on earth is studied 
more deeply, whilst it is still true that one can 
not go back and undo what has been, there arises 
the larger thought and fact of the continuity of 
individual and world life in which the good is 
conserved, the evil left behind. 

In the individual life and consciousness, child- 
hood and youth are not lost, but carried forward 
into the years and strength of manhood and wo- 
manhood. Our childhood, our youth, is still a part 
of ourselves; play has changed to labor; the "a, 
b, c 1 s," the "one, two, threes," are with us in the 
books we read and the numbers we calculate; 
lisping speech has become a language ; obedience 
in the home has opened the way to the larger 
world-order; lessons of truth and right have 
become great principles in the life of morals and 
religion. 



313 

And what is so evidently true in the indi- 
vidual experience is true, in another sense, in the 
larger life of our one human family. Each 
passing generation leaves to those who follow in 
its steps the paths over which it has journeyed, 
the work it has done in conquering land and 
sea, its progress in the industries, arts, sciences, 
language, literature, and the institutionalized 
forms in which these have taken shaping. The 
childhood of the world was carried forward into 
its youth, and this into its manhood. The mill- 
ions who "passed through" this strange scene 
of learning, doing and becoming, "had in their 
hearts the highways of Zion,"and helped "make 
the valley of weeping a place of springs." 

Civilization has been carried along the great 
"highways" of all industrial and business pur- 
suits; homes, cities, schools, temples of justice 
and religion have arisen; the great inventors 
have facilitated labor and travel; the lovers of 
liberty have toiled to make men free; the lovers 
of art have filled the world with the beautiful; 
the lovers of music have filled the world with 
song; the lovers of justice have tried and are try- 
ing to adjust the inequalities of the social order; 



314 

the lovers of reason have striven to make this a 
rational world; and the lovers of religion have 
toiled and are toiling now to make the earth a 
vast world -home of souls, of brotherhood, of 
love and prayer and hope immortal. 

Whatever may be the thought or hope of man 
about a life beyond death, race -continuity of the 
millions in this world for ages to come is not 
doubtful. So great is the rejuvinescence of the 
life forces of our human world, that its youth is 
ever rising out of its age. War, famine, pesti- 
lence have carried away countless millions; the 
earth has to be re -peopled nearly three times in 
each century; but, through all, race -continuity 
endures, and with ever increasing numbers. 

It took Germany one hundred years to recover 
from the "thirty years war, 1 ' but Germany is 
greater to-day than ever before; and, with Alsace 
and Lorraine gone and forty thousand German 
soldiers camping in her midst, France rose up and 
paid a billion dollars in gold. In the third of a 
century since the rebellion a new generation of 
men and women, young and strong, have come 
into the great life of our own country. 

Facing this fact of race -immortality, a great 
and near motivity comes into the life of man. 



315 

He "passes through 1 ' the strange scene; but he 
lives on in the life of children and country. 
Men die; institutions live, industries live, thought 
lives, truth lives, right lives; love, hope can not 
die. Hence there is the great inspiration, the 
altruism of the continuity of race life, race im- 
mortality; the othering, the enlarging, the pro- 
longing, the re-living of self as a conscious part 
of world or race life. 

Nor is this larger vision poetic, speculative. 
How can reason cease to be reason, or love cease 
to be love ? How can they drop out of or cease 
to be a part of the true, the good that is eternal ? 
Oh ! not for a day, but forever, is the thinking, lov- 
ing, hoping life of man; and not far away are 
the blessed dead, but more deeply and divinely 
than ever alive, and living in the deathless reali- 
ties of the real, and, like Moses and Elias with 
the transfigured Christ, coming back and sharing 
in the great events and interests of the world in 
which they once lived and toiled. 

"Are they not all ministering spirits sent 
forth to minister to the heirs of salvation?" 
"Seeing, then, that we are compassed about with 
so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with 
patience the race set before us." 



316 

It should not seem strange that in this forward- 
looking of a world there are those, "in whose 
hearts are the highways of Zion," and that, " pass- 
ing through the valley of weeping they make it 
a place of springs." All nations and religions 
have journeyed to some ideal of the better. With 
the Jews it was embodied in their Zion, their 
Jerusalem. The prophets hastened on before to 
climb the mountain tops and catch the light of the 
greater years; the priests lingered behind to 
organize, to build temples and minister at altars, 
to found and conserve institutionalized forms. As 
the prophets caught the larger truths and life of 
the spirit, the highways of Zion were in the soul, 
not in ritual observances; and they would make 
of all the earth a Zion, a Jerusalem, a vast empire 
of souls filled with righteousness. To such a Zion 
all the paths of a noble loving life were great 
"highways" along which all souls might gladly 
journey; but the Scribe, the Pharisee, the narrow 
dogmatist would close all the shining highways 
of a great rational religion of humanity in this 
tearful world, and leave open only one narrow 
dark way to a little walled -in heaven for a few 
little souls; and for these, not because of any per- 



317 

Bona] worth or merit, for what they had tried to 
be and do, but saved by a divine decree, and 
imputed merit and righteousness of another. 

A great preacher and prophet of God, one 
a in whose heart were the highways of Zion," 
and who " passing through the valley of weeping 
made it a place of springs," has gone from our 
city and our world. No more will he stand in the 
pulpit to which the many thousands have gladly 
gathered in the last twenty years. Our dear Pro- 
fessor Swing has " passed through the valley of 
weeping." This is his first Sabbath in the tearless 
land. His poor bod}', that can suffer no more, will 
be carried by those who stood by him in life to the 
church where he has so long taught the great 
truths of a great religion; but that voice is silent 
now. 

Of this great preacher it can be truthfully said, 
" in his heart were the highways of Zion; " not the 
little Zion of priest or sect; not the highways of 
narrow dogmatists; but the Zion of God, and the 
highways of the true, the beautiful, the good. 

He saw the great truths. To this man of God 
was given the clearer vision. He saw the great 
truths of Christianity, hidden and almost lost in 



318 

the maze and obscurity of the old Latin theology. 
He saw the doubts that were burdening the faith 
of his age. He saw the highways of reason and a 
rational religion. He heard the voice of Grod say- 
ing: "Son of man, prophecy, speak, teach ;" and, 
prophet-like, he was true to the vision, counted 
not the cost, thought not of the trouble that 
was to come — that the old vessels could not hold 
the new wine, and that he must go out from his 
old church home and find a free pulpit in which 
to be a free man — free as the truth makes free — 
and lovingly to preach the truth as he saw it. 

The prophet is always far in advance of the 
priest. Standing on the mountains, he sees the new 
morning, while the priest stands down in the shad- 
ows, and is trying to make fast, and to bind relig- 
ion to the thought of some long ago. Professor 
Swing was the prophet ; Dr. Patton was the priest. 
The one stood for the "truths of to-day ; v the 
other for the mistakes of yesterday. 

The prophet stood in the clearer vision of the 
divine; the priest stood for a confession of faith 
formulated two hundred and fifty years ago, when 
the church was busy burning witches. The priest 
had back of him these old interpretations or 



319 

declarations of what the minds of that time 
thought to be true. These were held up as author- 
ity, and the statement was boldly made that the 
question of their truth or falsehood was not in 
debate. The only question was, Did Professor 
Swing believe them? If not, the doctrine was 
that he had no right to remain in a church built 
upon them and pledged to their support. 

Technically, legally, such a position may be 
well taken; but it makes the thought of the past 
a finality, cuts off the possibility of progress, 
leaves no room for the growth of ideas, no place 
for the new and larger faith of man in all the 
great and better years of the future. In every- 
thing else there may be progress; religion alone 
must stand still. And, more than this, such a 
position not only binds the reason of man to a 
special interpretation of the Bible — in effect puts 
it in place of the Bible — but it emphasizes this 
special form of faith as the essential thing in 
religion — makes creed greater than life. 

And thus the great trial for heresy came — had 
to come. Standing in the light of truth, the 
prophet could not unsay what he had said. Stand- 
ing by the altars of creed, of authority, the priest 



320 

demanded strict conformity to law. Good men 
sought the mediation of larger toleration and per- 
sonal liberty, but in vain. With all his greatness 
of intellect, sweetness and beauty of life, Professor 
Swing was pushed out of the Presbyterian Church 
as a heretic, and Dr. Patton was honored, extolled, 
petted and rewarded as the "defender of the 
faith." 

And each, from his standpoint, was right. The 
true man can be true to himself and to truth, only 
as he stands by what to him is true. The great 
preachers can not be bound by majority votes and 
decisions. They must be free in the world of truth, 
and stand with open face before God. Such was 
Professor Swing, as simple, as honest, as humble 
as a child, and utterly incapable of mental trickery 
or duplicity. He could not deceive himself as to 
his own real beliefs, and he would not deceive 
others. Judged by the standards of orthodoxy, he 
was not orthodox. He did not claim to be. He 
did not accept as literal the story of the fall of 
man, did not believe in the doctrines of original 
sin, substitutional or penal atonement, and endless 
punishment; but he did believe in the great truths 
of the -new theology, lived in the great spiritual 



321 

verities of religion, and felt that a great Christian 
Church should be large enough to hold the think- 
ing of its children, and tolerant enough not to 
oppose their highest conceptions of truth. 

From Dr. Patton's standpoint the church had 
the truth — had all it ever could have. Orthodoxy 
was the only and final statement, and this it was 
the duty of the church, at any and every cost, to 
defend. If really sincere in this, there was only 
one thing to do. That one thing he did do, and, 
in doing it, if his theory be accepted, he per- 
formed a high and sacred duty and was worthy 
of all praise. 

But is the theory correct ? Is there no truth 
outside of orthodox churches ? Will these churches 
continue to claim a monopoly of salvation ? Great 
changes have come in the world of thought in the 
last twenty years. The new theology is taking 
the place of the old. The heresy of yesterday is 
becoming the orthodoxy of to-day, and the larger 
and better faith is finding its way into nearly all 
the great pulpits. Will the churches turn out 
these prophets of the new age ? Will the prophets 
be true to the voice and vision of God and the 
growing thought and need of a world? These 



322 

are the questions that are still troubling the ortho- 
dox churches. They have claimed too much. 
They hesitate to make concessions, and yet are 
powerless to stay the great world-movement of 
the new truth and life. Even the conservative 
Gladstone, seemingly not knowing what others 
have written and said along the lines of his 
own thinking, has come to the higher view of 
the atonement. 

Professor Swing has helped to make plainer 
"the highways of Zion " — the highways of a great 
reasonable religion; helped to make easier the 
path for other feet, and to bring nearer the great 
church of humanity, in which all minds shall be 
free to learn and to grow, and all hearts shall 
rejoice in the blessedness and joy of a religion 
of love and hope. In that great soul there was 
room for Jew and Christian, Catholic and Protest- 
ant, Orthodox and Liberal; for he saw all as 
children of the one Father, and saw a good life as 
the meaning and end of all these forms of faith 
and worship. Hence he had only kind words for 
all. 

In the heart of this great preacher were the 
highways of the beautiful. He loved nature and 



828 

art, loved continents and oceans, mountains and 
valleys, lakes and rivers, flowers, trees, the sky and 
stars above. He saw, in all, the presence and 
goodness of God. To him the vast world was a 
beautiful home. He loved pictures and statuary, 
music and literature. In that great soul were all 
the highways of love and kindness. He bowed 
down at the altars of life, and could not harm 
or hurt the meanest creature. He loved bird 
and animal, friend and stranger, man and God. 

" Passing through the valley of weeping," such 
a noble, toiling life has helped "make it a place 
of springs." From a mind, clear as crystal, have 
poured forth streams of purest thought and liter- 
ature; from a heart of love, springs of kindness 
have made gentler the life of man, and flowed on 
down to bless the poor brute world, and fountains 
of life have risen up to the throne of God. He 
has lived and pleaded for everything good; has 
been light in darkness, comfort in sorrow, hope in 
despair, to minds and hearts unnumbered, un- 
known. 

Great preachers add honor to cities and nations. 
Milan had an Augustine, Florence a Savonarola, 
London a Spurgeon, Brooklyn a Beecher, Chi- 



324 

cago a David Swing. That name, stricken from 
the pages of a Presbytery and Synod, was written 
quickly and forever in the heart of humanity. 
We are lonesome, the world is poorer, that he is 
not here. It was so unexpected. We hoped he 
might live and work on to the end of the century. 
He belonged to us all. There is such a feeling of 
absence, of vacancy, of something gone, — as if 
some sun -crowned height on which we had often 
looked had suddenly dropped from its place 
among the mountains; but, in form transfigured, 
glorified, he will not be far away, but near, in the 
deathless world of memory, of love and hope, till 
the valley of weeping is passed through. 

We sorrow with his family and with his church, 
and pray that some one will run forward and lift 
up the banner carried so long, but dropped in 
death by this great preacher and teacher. Noble 
friend, prophet of God, caught up to the heavens, 
farewell, till the night is passed and the morning 
dawns. 



Hn Estimate of tbe Character ant> Work 
of Bavto Swing, 

JBe IRev. ffre&ericfe 21. IRoble, S>.2>. 

"Your fathers, where are they? and the prophets, do they live 
forever?" — Zach. i. 5. 

For a period of more than twenty years David 
Swing has had a conspicuous place in the life of 
Chicago. Like the merchant princes who have 
grown up here, and the manufacturers of wide 
renown, his name and fame have come to be 
closely identified with the name and fame of our 
city. Few are the intelligent men, especially in 
this land, who have known of the activity and 
growth of this vast metropolis, who have not 
known something also of the celebrated Music 
Hall preacher. He spoke to large numbers from 
Sunday to Sunday, and the printed page pro- 
longed his voice and carried his words afar. 

Now that his remarkable career is ended, and 
his work is done, save in such subtle and abiding 
influences of it as death has no power to arrest, it 
seems good to pause long enough by his closed 
casket to acknowledge his excellencies and to 
pay such tribute as is his just due, and to come 



326 

to some well-grounded conclusions touching the 
value of the services he rendered to religion and 
society. So much was done in this pulpit when 
announcements reached us, in turn, that Beecher 
and Spurgeon and Brooks had ceased from their 
labors and passed into the heavens. Pursuing 
a similar course with reference to Professor Swing, 
I shall attempt this morning to tell the story, in 
brief, of his life, and to make as intelligent and 
candid an estimate as I may of his character and 
work. 

Many things in the make-up and method of 
Professor Swing are much more readily under- 
stood when it is known that he was of German 
descent. Like all of the higher type who are 
Germans, or who have German blood in their 
veins, he was cosmopolitan in his appreciations 
and sympathies, and could easily enter into fel- 
lowship with the representatives of every nation- 
ality ; but there was a peculiarity in the working 
of his mind and the expression of his thoughts, 
which differentiated him from the pure Scotch- 
man, or the pure Englishman, or the pure French- 
man, and indicated kinship with the marvelous 
people whose modes of apprehending and pre- 



327 

Benting truth are at once searching and pictur- 
esque, subtle and poetic, and whose genius has 
illustration on the one side in the mystic creations 
of Jacob Bohme, and on the other in the sublime 
productions of Goethe. 

But the German strain which left its impress 
on his intellectual and moral nature brought him 
neither social distinction nor wealth. Like Car- 
lyle, like Livingstone, like Paton, like Gariield, 
he was born to poverty. Not to abject poverty. 
For as Mr. Blaine showed, in his great oration in 
commemoration of his murdered chief, there is a 
wide margin of difference between the poverty of 
those who, while straitened in outward circum- 
stances, are yet self-respecting and intelligent and 
virtuous and aspiring, and those who, not having 
anything, are quite content to remain as they are r 
and who from generation to generation live on in 
a state of dependence and often of degradation. 

To add to the embarrassment occasioned by 
limited means, his father was swept away by the 
scourge of cholera which visited Cincinnati, the 
place of Swing's nativity, in 1832; and the child, 
so full of unknown promise, was left a half- 
orphan while only two years of age. 



328 

It calls for no extraordinary exercise of the im- 
agination to picture the struggles through which 
this mother, said on all sides to have been an 
exceptionally earnest, faithful, and devoted Chris- 
tian woman, must have passed in order to keep 
her home unbroken, and her two cherished boys, 
David and his brother, comfort ablv sheltered and 
clad and fed. God is on the side of such mothers, 
because such mothers are on the side of God; 
and somehow they are led through their trials, 
and in due time society sees them emerging from 
darkness into light. Like another Cornelia look- 
ing into the upturned faces of the two Gracchi 
and declaring them to be her jewels, one can 
think of this Ohio mother as often looking out 
upon the breadth and splendor of wealth about 
her, and then taking these two sons by the hand 
and exclaiming in quiet triumph, kk These are my 
possessions. 1 " 

At the end of iive years, the Cincinnati home 
was abandoned, and a new one was formed out 
in the country. Three years later, or when young 
Swing was ten years of age, there was still 
another change of location, and, in virtue of this 
change, the lad was to have eight consecutive 
years of experience on a farm. 



329 

Farming in the West is so unlike farming in 
the East that one brought up on a hillside of 
New England can not be sure that handling tools, 
and managing cattle, and sowing and reaping, and 
building iires, and mending fences, and going to 
mill, mean exactly to him what they mean to one 
whose agricultural training was on the prairies or 
in the river valleys of this wide and fertile interior 
of our land. But all that is best and most signifi- 
cant in the experience they share in common. 
East or West, the boy on the farm lives the larger 
part of his active life out under the broad open 
sky. He grows familiar with the varying hues 
and shapes of clouds and the sweep of storms. 
He smells the fresh odor of the mold when 
the furrow is turned, or the hoe finds its way to 
the roots of weeds. He observes with delight 
the unfolding of vegetation from the time when 
the seed swells and bursts through the crust of the 
earth till maturity has been reached. He watches 
the procession of the flowers, and very soon is 
able to predict what new beauty in each succeed- 
ing spring day will greet the eye, and what new 
fragrance will be in the air, as he goes forth to 
his toil. He gets on good terms with the birds, 



330 

and quickly understands in what order swallow 
and bluebird, and sparrow and thrush, and robin 
and oriole and bobolink, will make their appear- 
ance in tree -top and glen. He becomes familiar 
with the moods of horses and sheep and cows, 
and in instances not a few comes to have a deeper 
insight into human nature from what he knows 
of brute nature. The whole realm of the exte- 
rior world, with its suns and its stars, with its 
revolving seasons and growths, with its varied 
forms and forces of life, is open to a youth whose 
daily tasks take him to field and pasture and gar- 
den, as to hardly any other youth. Some of the 
sweetest and most pathetic of his songs Robert 
Burns would never have left us, had he not fol-. 
lowed the plow, and seen daisies ruthlessly turned 
under the sod, and poor, timid little mice scam- 
pering away in fright, because their nests were 
invaded and destroyed. Those eight years on 
the farm meant much beside mere physical health 
and strength to the live brain of David Swing. 

The eight years of farm life, however, canie to 
an end, and at the close of these years, in addi- 
tion to the other things he had done, and the 
other benefits he had gained, the young man 



331 

was found to be fitted for college. The work 
had been done by a Presbyterian minister, who, 
quite likely, had put the thought of going to col- 
lege into the boy's head, as well as helped him to 
realize it. Miami University was the institution 
chosen for pursuing a classical course. It is 
needless to say that the college at Oxford forty 
years ago was not what it is now. When this 
boy entered it, it had been a college only six- 
teen years. In the nature of the case it could 
not afford such amplitude of facility for educa- 
tion in all departments and branches as some 
of the older and more richly endowed institutions 
of the East ; but people who decry colleges because 
they are small and young, and think it foolish to 
have attempted to establish so many of them, 
especially in states and territories west of the 
Alleghanies, know little of what they are saying. 
Had it not been for this small college, or for 
some other small college not far away, where 
expenses were light, and with teachers in its sev- 
eral chairs well able to go to the heart of ancient 
learning, and to deal intelligently and courage- 
ously with the modern problems of life, it is a 
question which hardly admits of more than one 



332 

answer, whether this active-minded and aspir- 
ing young man would ever have found his way 
into academic halls. It is certain that all about 
us there are men by the score and score, who are 
eminent in their professions, and who are making 
splendid records of usefulness, who never would 
have got their start without the aid of the small 
colleges. Perhaps there is no moral which the 
life of our dead preacher points more distinctly 
than this. 

In the way of early biographical details, it 
remains simply to say, that after young Swing 
had graduated he studied theology, for a couple 
of years, under the direction of the Rev. Dr. 
Hice, of Cincinnati. Before completing full 
preparation for the ministry, however, he was 
called to occupy the chair of Greek and Latin in 
his Alma Mater. This chair he filled for some- 
thing like a dozen years. He might have re- 
mained there to the end had he been willing to 
stay; for his teaching was exceptionally suc- 
cessful. He reproduced ancient scenes, and 
handled the great thoughts of the great minds 
of the old Greek and Roman nations, with an 
appreciation and an enthusiasm which kept his 



333 

own soul aglow, and fired witli high heat the 
souls of those who waited on his instructions. 

Twenty -eight years ago Professor Swing came 
to Chicago. From the day he arrived and took 
up his work, till the day he died, his name has 
been a household Avord in this community, and 
his sayings and doings have been recognized fac- 
tors in the development of our common life. For 
almost three decades he has been a voice in the 
midst of this people, giving out the truth in such 
form and manner as he conceived it to be truth, 
sometimes expressing and sometimes molding 
public opinion, but ahvays commanding attention. 
Among his adherents his popularity never waned, 
and the interest strangers took in hearing him 
increased rather than diminished. His career 
was unique, and his success was phenomenal. It 
is easy to recall the names of men who have main- 
tained themselves on independent platforms, but 
there is no case exactly parallel to this. 

What now is the secret of this unique career \ 
In what quarter shall we look for the explanation 
of a success so marked ? 

We shall miss it immensely if we attribute it 
all to his liberal views, and to the interest which 



334 

the outside world, through its newspapers and 
platforms, and otherwise, is wont to take in one 
who is supposed to be at irreconcilable odds 
with orthodoxy. This was one element, and a 
very controlling element, of the esteem in which 
he was held in the popular heart and of the 
attachment with which multitudes clung to him. 
But it was only one. He had merits quite outside 
and beyond all those which men are in the habit 
of associating with that courage of conviction 
which is sufficiently defined and robust to dissent 
from commonly accepted views in religion. He 
was a man of rare gifts and rare acquisitions. 

1. To begin with, much is to be set down to 
the purity and loftiness of his character. He 
was not sweet-tempered merely, and loving and 
kind and helpful merely; but he was a man so 
clean and elevated in his life, so ideal in his 
thoughts and words, and habits, and tastes, and 
associations, that it seems almost like an imper- 
tinence to commend him for the possession of 
high moral qualities. These qualities were so 
much a part of him, they entered so vitally into 
his personality, that one can not think of the man 
without thinking of him as the embodiment and 
expression of an imposing uprightness of soul. 



335 

Such character, as a certificate of sincerity, and a 
re -enforcement of what one says and does, can 
hardly be over-estimated. When William M. 
Evarts was once asked to account for the strong 
hold Dr. John Hall had taken on the people of 
New York, his prompt answer was, "His superb 
character.' 1 Character tells. The loftier the char- 
acter, the more positive and far-reaching the 
influence of the man who possesses the charac- 
ter. If the character be defective, especially if it 
be defective to the point of falseness, the words 
one speaks, though they be brilliant as flashes in 
the northern sky, will be wingless, and as weak 
as the chatter of a group of imbeciles. One can 
think of a man in an eastern city, who had excep- 
tional abilities and a large following, and who 
broke away from the old faith and set up on an 
independent basis, but who came to quick col- 
lapse because his character was discovered to be 
bad. One can think of a man in a western city, 
who has marked capacity of thought and speech, 
and who has sought to make of his free opinion 
a working capital; but his questionable charac- 
ter has wrecked him. Professor Swing had an 
unimpeachable character. 



336 

2. In addition to this high type of character, 
Professor Swing was magnificently equipped for 
the kind of pulpit work he was to do. He had a 
cast of mind peculiar to himself, and to many 
people exceedingly interesting; but this was not 
all. He had a well -disciplined mind, and a full 
mind. He knew things. Science had brought 
him treasures of knowledge. History had poured 
her vast wealth at his feet. Literature had 
opened its choicest pages to his eager search. 
Philosophers and poets and quaint and unheard- 
of authors had taken him into their fellowship 
and whispered their secrets in his ear. Remem- 
ber, he had his early out-door training, of which 
he made much, and his college preparation, 
which was exceptionally good because he made 
it so; and his four years in the university 
were years of golden opportunity coined into a 
splendid record; and his two years of special 
theological study and training with an eminent 
minister; and then, plus all this, he had twelve 
years of life in a professor's chair, which he used 
to such advantage in his own discipline and devel- 
opment, that Greek and Latin came to be to him 
almost like a mother-tongue, and Homer and 



337 

JSschylus and Vergil grew well-nigh as familiar 
to liis thought as Shakespeare and Milton and 
Whittier. His sense of the value of these old 
classics was cropping out continually in his ser- 
mons. His fondness for the Greeks and their 
tongue was the fondness of a mother for her 
children. Here is a paragraph from one of his 
tributes of admiration: "The Greek language is 
still almost an unsurpassed tongue. Eighteen 
hundred years have added only a small area to 
the scope of that vast speech. There is scarcely 
a question of the present day discussed, that was 
not reviewed by the Greek thinkers and stowed 
away in their manuscripts. Their essays upon 
education, upon health, upon art, upon amuse- 
ments, upon war, read almost as though they 
were written yesterday. Even that question 
which seems our own, the creation and property 
of this generation — whether women should vote 
and follow manly pursuits — is all fully discussed 
in 'Plato's Ideal Kepublic.' " 

His information was both thorough and wide, 
and he was master of it. He knew what had 
been the achievements of thought in Egypt and 
India. He knew the art of Italy. He knew the 



338 

story of inventors and explorers. He knew the 
triumphs and problems of modern research. He 
knew what all the great writers of romance have 
said and taught. 

These vast stores of knowledge he turned to 
account in his preaching. In a single discourse 
one might often detect contributions of fact, or 
reference, or incident, brought in from almost all 
the lands and ages, and from almost all the realms 
of investigation and study. In this way, he 
maintained an unflagging interest, and kept what- 
ever he was saying bright with the flash of jewels 
gathered from afar. He did not attempt to illus- 
trate his speech with touching anecdotes, like 
Spencer and Guthrie ; nor to punctuate his writing 
with over-many crisp, sharp sentences, like Spur- 
geon and Parkkurst; nor to create dramatic situ- 
ations with which to surprise the mind, like 
Parker and Talmage; nor to force all the vary- 
ing moods of the heart, and all the wide experi- 
ences of life to aid him in impressing his 
thoughts, like Luther and Beecher; nor to bring 
forward the stories and characters and striking 
events of the Scriptures to point his periods, like 
Hall and Taylor; nor to put a torrent of energy 



339 

into his words to sweep them on from source to 
sea with the irresistible and awful might of a 
swollen river, like Robertson and Brooks; but, 
for all this, he kept his utterances so alive with 
present-day interest, and so illuminated with 
light of star and reflection of flower, and so warm 
with a half-suppressed passion, and so fresh and 
beautiful with the garments of fancy which he 
wove and threw over all his forms of thought, 
that nobody ever grew weary or dull of mind 
under his presentation of a truth. If his ser- 
mons were not so much sermons as essays — essays 
on the model of Aurelius, or Plutarch, or Emer- 
son, or Lowell — it is still true that the wonderful 
fascination and power of them, or a share of it 
at any rate, must be sought in the masterly skill 
and wealth of learning and poetic coloring he 
was able to give them. 

There is a lesson here for all who contemplate 
entering the ministry. It is the lesson of thor- 
oughness of preparation for the great work. If 
a man has nothing in him, and no capability of 
having anything put into him, and is nevertheless 
determined to engage in the ministry of Jesus 
Christ, let him rush into it. The quicker he goes 



340 

in, the better; for the quicker he goes in, the 
quicker he will get out. But just in the ratio in 
which men have natural fitness for the high busi- 
ness of preaching the Gospel, and are sincere 
and earnest, and consecrated, do they need to 
take time to discipline their minds and fill them 
with knowledge. Had I the ear of theological 
students, I should say to them: Read, read, read. 
Read the great histories. Read the great poetries. 
Read the great essays. Read the great biogra- 
phies. Read the great romances. Read the 
great results of science. Read other things ? Of 
course. This goes without saying. But read, 
read, and still read. 

3. Professor Swing won the confidence of 
large numbers of the best people of the commun- 
ity, and brought them into close affiliation with 
his teachings and suggestions, by the profound 
and wise and helpful and unremitting interest he 
took in social and ethical questions. His word 
stood for pure, manly living in the individual; for 
sweet homes; for refinement and culture and noble 
aspirations in social circles; for good schools and 
good books and good music and good pictures, 
and good habits ; for high standards in business 



341 

spheres; for clean politics and patriotic devotion 
to the welfare of the state; for temperance, and 
liberty, and humanity, and justice; for a fellow- 
ship which should bind into one, as with cords 
braided out of the love of God in Christ, the 
weak and the strong, the poor and the rich, the 
low and the high, and make them all feel the 
sacredness and beauty of human brotherhood. 

In no crisis in our city or commonwealth, 
when sharp, ringing voices were needed on the 
right side to keep men level-headed and stanch, 
did he ever falter. When the red flas; was lifted 
up, and mad agitators wrote what amounted to 
"divide or die 1 ' across their banners, and the 
authorities were thinking more of the votes they 
might want in some coming election than of the 
peace and order they had solemnly promised to 
maintain and the protection they had sworn to 
afford, he threw the influence of his own name, 
and, so far as he could, the influence of the con- 
gregation he represented, into the scale against 
anarchy. When waves of poverty and distress 
suddenly rolled in upon us, a year ago, and 
threatened to whelm us under their weight, he 
uttered the most searching and courageous and 



342 

helpful words which found expression in any of 
our pulpits. He went to the root of the matter, 
and, while urging the people to whom he spoke 
to give of their abundant wealth to help the 
needy, he did not hesitate to tell these wretched, 
starving people just why they were wretched and 
starving. They had been sowing to the wind of 
idleness and unthrift and self-indulgence and 
intemperance, and they were reaping the whirl- 
wind of want and woe. In the discourse deliv- 
ered by him only a few weeks ago, from his desk 
in Central Music Hall, his first for this new year 
of work, and his last — forever, he handled the 
whole subject of our recent strike and riot in a 
way to show how clear was his insight into pres- 
ent conditions and perils, and how firm his grasp 
on the principles which must be accepted and 
followed, if peace is to be preserved, and labor 
and capital are to be reconciled for good. 

Whatever he did not find in it, Professor 
Swing found in Christianity these two things: 
He found the highest rule for the government of 
individual conduct, and he found the highest 
system of political economy which the world has 
ever known. 



343 

Here is a passage from a sermon in "Truths 
for To-day:" "It would seem that Paul, in his 
chapter upon Charity, was expressly describing 
the perfect gentleman. 'Charity suffereth long 
and is kind. Charity envieth not. Charity 
boasteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not 
behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is 
not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth 
not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth; bear- 
eth all things, belie veth all things, hopeth all 
things, endureth all things.' " 

Having said this, he goes on to show that our 
philosophers and political economists and states- 
men have made, not only a very grievous, but a 
very foolish mistake, in permitting their preju- 
dices to come in and interfere with turning to 
the Bible to find the foundation-stones on which 
to erect a system for the regulation of the rela- 
tions of man to man in society. "It has long 
been a custom," so he says, " of philosophers, to 
pass in silence any lessons of civilization upon 
the pages of scripture, and patiently to seek and 
deeply to love everything in Aristotle or Plato — 
a blossoming of prejudice only paralleled by the 
Christians who despise everything from Plato or 
Aristotle." This conviction deepened with him. 



344 

'He saw no rules to guide individuals and no 
basis of good citizenship at all comparable to 
those furnished by Christianity. 

By his identification with moral causes, and 
his uniform and earnest advocacy of righteous- 
ness in all the relations of life, this man helped 
to create a wholesome public opinion in Chicago, 
and to keep thought and life at a higher level. 
Immorality has been made to seem grosser, and 
meanness meaner, and selfishness more contempt- 
ible, and official corruption more criminal, because 
of words spoken by this great and scholarly 
preacher. What is not less to his credit, he has 
had the courage to look men of wealth in the 
face and tell them what, in virtue of their wealth, 
they owe to education, to art, to philanthropy, 
to the state, and to the uplifting of the masses 
of ignorant and degraded and vicious humanity 
with which they are daily jostled on the streets. 
The tonic energy of this teaching will be missed 
in the days to come. 

4. Beyond all this, Professor Swing held with 
a tenacious grasp to some articles of faith which 
must have a place in any system of Christian 
theology, and some of which, indeed, are vital 
and fundamental to any system of religion. 



845 

Like all men who have any intelligent thought 
and convictions on the subject of their own exist- 
ence, and their relation to the universe and the 
powers of the universe which are about them, 
he had a creed. It was not so long a creed, and 
it did not comprehend so much as the creeds of 
some other men. On the other hand, there are 
creeds not nearly so long and not nearly so com- 
prehensive. To accept one of his own latest 
statements, he believed in God, and in the 
immortality of the soul, and in the love of 
Christ. This is not all there is to believe, nor 
all that it is rational to believe ; but when a man 
accepts God in his personality and fatherhood, 
with all these conceptions imply, and the great 
doctrine of immortality as something inherent in 
the soul and necessary to any exalted and worthy 
idea of our natures, and the love of Christ as 
being the purest and warmest and most trans- 
forming love which ever finds its way into the 
human heart and mingles with the currents of 
human life, he has a basis of truth on which he 
can stand and do a certain kind of very effective 
work. Such a man, at least, can be a break- 
water against incoming floods of materialism, 



346 

and possibly hold back some doubting soul from 
rushing on to the extreme limit and plunging 
over the awful abyss of absolute and utter nega- 
tion. There is no age and no condition in which 
the assertion of things spiritual is not worth 
much to mankind. We are of the earth, earthy; 
but we are also of God, and may be godly. 

This man who has just gone out from us never 
wearied of avowing his faith in things unseen and 
eternal, in mind over matter, in a soulhood 
superior to the body, in God immanent in nature 
but above and behind nature, and in realms of 
existence which are invisible and everlasting. 
Even here and now, he sees, just as the New Tes- 
tament writers one and all saw, that one may 
enter on this life of the inner over the outer, and 
have foretastes of the ever -enduring. "Spirit- 
uality! " he says: "This is nothing else than a 
divineness of soul, a rising above things material, 
gold and bonds and raiment, and living for the 
soul in its relation to time and eternity. God is 
called a spirit because there are characteristics in 
all material things which separate them from 
perfection. The word spirit is the ideal for the 
everlasting. It is an embodiment of love, and of 



347 

thought, and of truth, and of life, and hence is 
felt to be immortal. The spiritual man is, hence, 
a soul not wedded to dust, but to truth and love 
and life. To be spiritually minded is life." 

These are some of the excellencies to be dis- 
covered in the teaching and life of Professor 
Swing. In these excellencies lie some of the 
reasons why the community at large put such a 
high estimate on his services, and why so many 
men and women were bound to him in bonds of 
admiration and trust and love. 

Why, then, not accept his system and method, 
and make it the system and method for all? 
Simply because, holding and uttering whatever he 
did of truth, there are, as appear in reports of 
his discourses, and in the popular apprehension 
of his teaching, omissions of elements which are 
central to Christianity as a method of redemp- 
tion, and which enter essentially into the whole 
scheme of truth which gathers about the cross, 
and makes it a working force intent on the sal- 
vation of all humanity. 

The largest fact which it is possible for the 
mind of man or angel to contemplate is — God. 
The largest fact of which we can conceive in con- 



348 

nection with God is — love. Tlie most obvious 
and obtrusive fact to be discovered in connection 
with man is — sin. This sin of man is everywhere 
apparent, and it takes along with it a train of 
unutterable vices and miseries and woes. In 
Jesus the infinite love of God and the inexpressi- 
ble sin of man are brought face to face and set 
down at close grips. We have it all in the 
matchless passage: "For God so loved the world 
that he gave his only begotten Son, that who- 
soever believeth on him should not perish, but 
have everlasting life." Jesus the Christ is there on 
the cross because man is a sinner and God loves 
him and wants to save him. But Jesus is there 
on the cross, not as a wholesome influence merely, 
but as an expiation. Jesus Christ did not come 
into the world to condemn men. He did not 
need to do this. Men were condemned already. 
They had condemned themselves by their own 
alienations and transgressions. He came to 
deliver them from their condemnation and save 
them. He did this, so he himself tells us, and 
so the inspired apostles tell us, by atoning 
for men in a sacrificial and vicarious death. He 
came to be the ransom of men, their Redeemer, 



349 

their Higli Priest, as well as their teacher and 
example and brother. 

On these two facts, sin and the awfnl guilt 
and consequence of sin, and salvation through 
the death of the Son of God on the cross, stress 
must be laid. Not in the interest of a system 
merely is this to be done, but in the interest of 
the vitality and aggressiveness and saving power 
of Christianity. Otherwise Christianity has no 
energy in it to cope with the conditions of the 
problem which confronts it. For it is not a few 
refined people alone, a few cultivated and select 
circles with their philosophical troubles and 
doubtings, who are to be ministered to and saved; 
but it is the people who are down at the bottom 
as well, the people in the alleys and slums and in 
the midst of the far-away barbarians, full of sin, 
and ignorant and wicked and vile; and our system 
of help must be one which will enable us to deal 
effectually with the raw material of a w ay ward 
and disloyal humanity. The problem is to get 
men, men of all sorts and conditions, men of all 
races and climes, out of sin into holiness, and 
then to fire their breasts with the zeal of holiness. 
In the long run, it will not do to leave out of our 



350 

system the features and elements which exactly 
suit it to this end. We shall not reach the end 
if we do. 

Twenty years ago, Professor Swing himself 
said, "The impulse [to a good Christian activity] 
is faith in Christ as the soul's Savior. It has 
always been the power that has carried the Pauls 
over the JEgean, or the pioneer Methodist to the 
wilds of America. It has been the earthquake 
force that has heaved up from a bitter sea a con- 
tinent of unfading flowers and perpetual spring. 
Each heart busy in any pursuit moves by a natural 
impulse. You know what the love of pleasure 
does, and you know what is accomplished by 
what the Latin poet calls ' accursed love of gold.' 
Beneath all activity lies an impulse, a motive. 
Under the vast movement called salvation, that 
movement which to-day gathers the Laplanders 
to a worship, and makes the Sandwich Islanders 
join with the angels in sacred song; beneath the 
movement which to-day is the best glory of all 
civilization, under this vast renewal of the heart 
— lies faith in Christ, the impulse of all this pro- 
found action. The least trace of infidelity lessens 
the activity; unbelief brings all to a halt, and 



351 

(Iannis the soul, not by arbitrary decree, but by 
actually arresting the outflow of its life. Unbelief 
is not an arbitrary, but a natural damnation. 
Faith in the Infinite Father, faith in Christ the 
Savior, faith in a life to come, lifts the world up 
as though the direct arms of God were around it 
drawing it toward his bosom." These are great 
words. They were true on the yesterday when 
they were uttered. They are true to-day. They 
will be true to-morrow and to-morrow. The 
vital and aggressive force of Christianity lies in 
souls redeemed by faith in a living Christ, and in 
the propulsive energy derived from him. 

In that same period of twenty years ago, Pro- 
fessor Swing, in a sermon in which he felt called 
upon to assert and defend a positiveness in Chris- 
tianity as against the negation and emptiness of 
what calls itself "free religion," spoke in this 
strain: "The 'free religion,' so-called, which 
denies our idea of prayer, dissuades from hymn 
and from hope in a future life, does nothing but 
empty the mind and the heart, and hence can 
never build up a great life, unless emptiness of 
soul is one of the foundations of greatness. All 
the moral greatness of the past is based upon the 



352 

assumption of such motives of God and worship 
and immortality and benevolence and virtue and 
duty. The great names all grew up out of such 
soil. These propositions filled the old hearts 
that made this great world Ave enjoy with its 
education, its liberty, its morals, its religion. It 
is too late, it seems to me, to ask mankind to 
empty its mind of all these old, grand ideas, and 
then expect a grandeur of character to spring up 
from nothingness as a soil, and to grow in a space 
which has no rainfall, no dew, no sunshine, but 
which is only a vacuum. To expect a great 
soul to germinate in a soil of negation, and grow 
in a vacuum, is to cherish a frail hope; and yet 
this is the prospect to which what is called ' free 
religion ' is itself hastening and inviting us." 
Words again which were true on the yesterday 
on which they were pronounced, and which are 
true to-day, and which will be true to-morrow 
and to-morrow. It is a positive faith in a posi- 
tive Christ, however the statement of it may be 
phrased, which secures the soul in salvation, and 
fills the heart with great aspirations, and stirs to 
unselfish and heroic endeavors to bring the world 
into reconciliation to God. 



353 

But our talk must cease. A conspicuous figure 
lias disappeared from our streets and our circles. 
One whose words were an inspiration to many 
minds, and a guide to many feet, and a comfort to 
many troubled hearts, will utter words on earth 
no more. A loving and lovable man has gone 
hence to his reward. He will be missed, amongst 
large numbers sadly missed and mourned, in our 
city, and far and wide. When some question of 
vital moment has been up, and each has been 
eager to know the opinion of the ripest minds on 
the matter, it has been one of our first thoughts 
to turn to the Monday morning papers to see 
what Professor Swing said on the subject. But 
this we shall do no more. Like others, here and 
elsewhere, whose views helped to enlighten and 
guide the popular mind, he has passed on into 
the immortal spheres. 

In a sermon of his on St. John, Professor Swing 
makes these words the closing paragraph. Re- 
peating them after him we say our farewell, and 
bid him jo^ in the light and glory of the larger 
world into which he has entered: "In the nat- 
ural world we perceive that the Creator has pre- 
pared a golden bed, into which, every evening, the 



354 

sun sinks. * * * But God loves the human 
heart more than he loves the stars. Hence, the 
Savior came. St. John points out to us the 
beautiful horizon where the soul goes down. 
And when our friends who have loved God die, 
when a humble child or a Christ -like statesman, 
when beautiful youth or venerable manhood, 
bid farewell to earth, and our tears fall upon 
their dust, we behold best, in John's gospel and 
dream, the golden couch that receives into its 
peace these stars sinking down from the sky of 
this life." 



ffiiebop Samuel fallows* 

1be 5peafts ffeelinglE of bis association witb tbe ILamenteo 
prcacber. 

The death of Professor Swing is a personal 
loss to thousands of people who were not identi- 
fied with him in matters of religious opinion. 
His broad sympathies united him with all classes 
of his fellow men. His voice was always heard 
on the side of charity, philanthropy, and reform. 
He was always in the front rank of advocates, 
when the interests of the people were concerned. 
The w 7 arm words of cheer and prophetic utter- 
ance, when the People's Institute was begun, will 
not soon be forgotten by those who heard them. 
His sermons were constructed according to no 
isometrical rules. They were beautiful, poetical, 
moral essays, permeated with a spirit of religious 
devoutness, adorned with the graces of a refined 
rhetoric, and enriched with wonderful wealth of 
literary allusion. His satire, though keen, was 
never malignant. A kindly humor relieved it of 
all bitterness. From conversations with Professor 
Swing I believe that he was, in the main, orthodox, 
in the comprehensive sense of the term. His 



356 

passionate love of the doctrine of the freedom of 
man, and its consequent liberty of individual 
thought, threw, perhaps, out of its due relation in 
his teachings, the complementary truth of the 
sovereignty of God. But the great cardinal 
tenets of the orthodox faith I feel sure he person- 
ally held. But. as I have said, his discourses 
were elevated essays rather than the usual style 
of sermons. Doctrinal discussions he could not 
bear, and did not present. Outside of the pulpit. 
he was a fine, discriminating critic, and an accom- 
plished litterateur. He was a man of contem- 
plation rather than of action. But, by pen and 
voice, he aided, with mighty words of well- 
winnowed wisdom, the men of deeds. He was a 
Melancthon and not a Luther. 

Although occupying, by the force of circum- 
stances, an independent position, he yet craved 
the sympathy and fellowship which come with a 
congenial ecclesiastical home. When a course of 
sermons was being preached by leading divines, 
in St. Paul's Church, on the distinctive tenets of 
their various denominations, I requested Professor 
Swing to preach one on the subject of ^Independ- 
encv." In a verv kind manner, but with a ^reat 



357 

deal of earnestness, lie replied, "I do not believe 
in independency and, therefore, can not defend it. 
I am an independent not of my own choosing. I 
would much prefer to be in harmonious affiliation 
with others, in a church organization. " Whatever 
doctrinal differences there might be between us, 
there was no abatement of my love and respect 
for Professor Swing. The longer I knew him, 
the deeper and stronger grew my affectionate 
regard for him. A great and good man has gone 
from us. Tender and gracious memories will 
ever be cherished in my heart of his genial pres- 
ence, inspiring words and uplifting life. 



IRev* lb. B> Delano- 

Simplicity of IReligton as Caugbt b£ a (Sreat H>teciple. 

I hesitate not to speak in terms of strongest 
eulogy of this great disciple. The question 
to-day of any man is not, did he deny the faith, 
"but did he live the life of God among men? 
Professor Swing's life interpreted his faith. 

As the Pike's Peak of our Rockies rises in 
lofty and monarch -like grandeur above the range 
of which it is a part, far above all the inferior 
and vaunting or vaulting summits, so this man 
rose among us alone, isolated, silent and majes- 
tic, above us all. The ideal of a great future for 
mankind marched before his mind constantly, a 
cloud by day and a pillar of iire by night, lead- 
ing him, as Moses was led, toward the land of 
promise. 

His was a vision of a divine, though invincible, 
hand, regulating all the vast laws of the universe 
to splendid harmony, and insuring a divine con- 
tinuity of history and events, all tending to man's 
final good. His mind was full of dreams of the 
things to come, things not yet seen, and, from out 

358 



359 

Lis visions of God, visions of man redeemed from 
his littleness, he was always making the new 
heaven and the new earth. 

For the prosy and leaden interpretations of a 
Puritan theology, for a harsh, vindictive and 
exasperating Calvinism, for the narrowness and 
bigotry which drew their line through every fair 
garden and predestinated one half to woe, this 
man had no taste, no fancy, and no sympathy. 
And yet those who will read that memorable ser- 
mon upon "Paradise Lost" will find the evidence 
of his belief in a law of penalty and tears and 
wretchedness for those who willfully run against 
the edge of thorns binding every flowery path. 
Against injustice, hardness, cruelty, and crime 
his face was sternly set, yet, with a heart that 
always took the offenders place, considered his 
temptation, and weighed the circumstances. How 
great, how magnanimous, how tender he was! 
Like the bird that tarries long and sings sweetly 
on till captors are very close upon him, this man, 
knowing he had wings to fly, could afford to be 
indifferent to all the little agitators who swing 
their weapons and shout. 



360 

He saw God in the Bible and had read and 
copied his law into that stainless, beautiful life 
of his, which sunned and shamed us all. But he 
saw him, too, in suns and storms, in clouds and 
sunsets, in forest and on lakes, in woodland and 
in meadows fair, in June days of bloom and 
beauty, and in autumns rich with haze and mist, 
aster and golden-rod. He saw him in limping 
beggar and forlorn mendicant, in the faces of 
little children, in homes made happy by his love, 
and in all the order, beauty, grace, and design of 
the universe. He loved art, not for itself, nor its 
money value, but for what it expressed to him. 
He loved poetry, and the songs of all the great 
poets were upon his lips. Do not forget that 
while we need men to earnestly contend for 
faiths, we have the greater need of men whose 
lives will interpret and unfold their faith. There 
is war enough, clamor and debate enough. This 
great, true man has left to us all an example 
which rebukes the hot contention and the acrid 
strifes of the hour. 



IRev* 3* IP* Bruebingbam 

pass an ^Eloquent tribute to tbe flfcemorg of a <5reat 

/Ifcan. 

Strength of character and a love for the beau- 
tiful were blended in splendid proportions in the 
life of him for whom a city mourns to-day. Alas! 
There is no strength nor beauty in this earthly 
life, able to resist the stern reaper. 

Although the great and good man, who has 
gone out from among us, was as gentle as a child, 
he was none the less heroic and manly. Although 
a " prince and a great man in Israel,' 1 he never 
impressed one as at all conscious of his own 
greatness. The charm of true greatness lies 
in the spirit of humility, which says with David 
Swing: a My Ego is no more than your Ego." 
I met him frequently among the shelves of rare 
and ancient volumes, of which he was such a 
competent and discriminating judge. At such 
times he seemed pleased to converse concerning 
the merits of favorite authors with a fellow stu- 
dent whose place was but a humble one com- 
pared with his own. There be great preachers 
and teachers who seem almost to say: " I am 



362 

Sir Oracle, and when I ope my mouth let no dog 

bark." How differently with him, 

" Whose life was gentle. 
And the elements so mixed in him 
That nature could stand up and say to all the world, 
1 This was a man.' " 

I remember a conversation between Professor 
Swing and several of us younger men in the Meth- 
odist ministry, in the course of which he magnani- 
mously sought to explain away his own promi- 
nence as compared with that of other men in the 
same profession. 

" For example," he said, k ' Dr. Hatfield, of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church, is among the great- 
est preachers of America/' 

kk Why does he not have as large an audience 
as yourself, Professor Swing? " 

" Oh, he is at work under a different system.'* 
was the reply. " Dr. Hatfield has a very large 
following, but it is distributed throughout the 
whole country, some in Brooklyn, some in Provi- 
dence, others in Cincinnati, and in the differ- 
ent cities where he has labored. I have been 
in Chicago for over twenty years, and have 
personal friends enough to fill any ordinary 
place of worship/' 



363 

He seemed anxious to impress us that his great 
influence was due to fortunate circumstances, and 
not to any special ability which inhered in him- 
self. 

That last sermon which, he preached was so 
typical of his public ministry, and so filled with 
prophetic meaning. Its deep significance and 
rare beauty so impressed me at the time that I 
clipped it from the printed page and kept it as a 
treasured legacy, little thinking that it was his 
last. He saw clearly the great conflict in our 
present social and industrial life, and besought 
the clergy of the land to harmonize the contend- 
ing forces. To him, love was the great gravity 
principle in the moral universe. To him, there 
was more power in a single sunbeam of love than 
in a thousand anvils of strife and hatred. He 
was the gentle Melancthon, to stand amid the 
upheavals of these rugged times and always coun- 
sel moderation. With that mournful headline in 
the public press, " Professor Swing is Dead," 
there came a feeling as if the morning dawn had 
died away; as if the sweetest zephyrs had ceased 
to whisper aught but his sad requiem. 

His was a unique personality. America has 



364 

produced none like him in pulpit or rostrum. 
His public utterances were original, versatile, 
broad in spirit, and beautiful in diction. He 
never repeated himself, yet never copied any 
one else. All literature was to him a garden of 
flowers whence he drew the honeyed sweetness of 
pure, persuasive speech. His sympathies were 
so broad and tender that even the brute creation 
found in him a genial and kindly friend. 

Too broad and catholic for dogmatism, he 
could be confined to no pent-up Utica of any one 
theological system. He was a poet-preacher, who 
saw all things good and beautiful in God and 
man. To him 

" There was one faith, one law, one element, 

One far-off divine event, 

Towards which the whole creation tends." 

But how shall we speak of him who was wont 
to speak in accents so tender and pathos so sub- 
lime at the open grave, when others died ( Not 
only the family of David Swing, and the Central 
Church, his throne of power, are bereaved to-day, 
but all Chicago and the great Northwest suffer 
loss. Literature and art, poetry, philosophy, and 
religion, may all bow their heads in grief. A 



365 

community can ill afford to lose its great scholars, 
its noble philanthropists, its patient reformers, its 
lofty moral teachers. 

The great, modest, kindly scholar and friend 
is not dead. He is even now crowned with the 
immortality of the good and true. He will live 
in grateful memory. The truth which he lived 
and taught will immortalize his name. 

From the throne of Central Church there will 
flow on and on a stream of living truth, "clear as 
crystal," broad and deep and beautiful. 



IRev, G. W. Iban&forfc, 

The broad and generous charity, the large,, 
hopeful, all -enduring love, that formed the theme 
of David Swing's ministry, became incarnate in 
his life. Beautiful and pathetic, eloquent and 
inspiring as his sermons were, he was the grand- 
est sermon of all. And he, though dead, will be 
eloquent for many a day. Thousands whose 
hands he never grasped, whose faces he never 
knew, will feel sad to the center of their hearts 
that death has borne away so wise a teacher, so 
gentle a friend. He has served his day and gen- 
eration, and has "fallen on sleep," as did that 
other David of the kingly race. His sun went 
down at eventide; it w^ent not down in darkness 
and in storm, but melted in the pure light of 
heaven. We need not trouble about the future. 
Prof. Swing will have no successor. Such men 
can not be succeeded. Beecher, and Spurgeon, and 
Swing, have done their work. The men are few 
and far between, who could gracefully wear the 
mantle of these ascended saints. Other men and 
other methods will be able to do grand work in 
the old places. To follow in a procession is one 



367 

thing, but to succeed a great man is quite 
another. 

There have been many poets — only one 
Milton; many preachers — only one Swing. He 
has gone from us, and yet we can not think 
that that busy brain has ceased to act, or that 
that large heart has ceased to love. Milton is 
not dead. Hampden is not dead. Washington 
and Lincoln are not dead, nor is David Swing. 
He has entered the silent land, and we stand by 
that gate of death that leads to life, silent, and 
solitary, and sad. 



•Resolutions passes b? tbe fourth 
Presbyterian Cburcb, 

Resolved, That tlie news of the death of the 
Rev. David Swing, formerly pastor of this church, 
has filled us with deep sorrow, and we desire to 
express to the family and the friends our deepest 
sympathy in this severe bereavement; and we 
desire also to record our high appreciation of 
Professor Swing 1 s services, while a pastor for 
nearly ten years, to many in this church, and our 
constant love and respect for him. With feelings 
of thankfulness we recognize his many services to 
the community as a whole, and rejoice in the 
record of labors so manifold and so fruitful. The 
memory of his life and work will long linger 
among us. We recognize his great talents, and 
his life will be an inspiration, as an example of 
sweet and gentle service, and of untiring devotion 
to the cause of righteousness. May the comfort 
and strength his words have often brought to 
those in sorrow and distress now be the portion 
of those who see a beloved form laid to his rest, 
and follow through the unseen portals the immor- 
tal spirit that has entered into its eternal home. 



369 

Resolved, That the session of the Fourth Pres- 
byterian Church attend the services in a body, 
and that a copy of these resolutions be sent to the 
family. 



prof. Swing's IReasone for Witbbrawal 

from tbe Presbyterian 

Cburcb, 

Xetter to tbe afourtb Presbyterian Cburcb. 

My Beloved Congregation: During the past 
three months our relations have been disturbed, 
almost daily, by new rumors and new facts, indi- 
cating an approaching end of our ties as pastor 
and people. It has hitherto been impossible for 
me to address to you any words that might put 
rumors to rest and cast any light upon the future. 
Neither you nor I desire to break up associations of 
long standing — associations peculiarly pleasant, 
and even sacred. It was human, at least, in us all, 
to await the command of the ecclesiastical court 
that presides over such affairs and that is sup- 
posed to issue its decrees with sufficient prompt- 
ness. At last, the court to which this society is 
amenable has formally expressed its belief, or 
rather its hope, that, after the close of this year, 
this church will place itself in a position less 
irregular — will find a pastor among the Presbyte- 
rian clergy in good standing. The session, neither 

370 



871 

as a session nor as individuals, has said any- 
thing to warrant the hope or conviction expressed 
by the Presbytery, but has waited the simple 
movement of the cold church -law. 

In this crisis, the session has, in the hope of 
saving the relations mutually pleasant, urged me 
to return to the Presbyterian brotherhood; but, 
as the most precious thing to one who has dared 
stand up to preach is his capital of truth and his 
intellectual liberty, the kind wish of the session 
could not for a moment be entertained. I would 
therefore announce to-day that, on or before the 
close of the year, I shall cease preaching to the 
Fourth Presbyterian Church. It is due to the 
Presbytery, composed for the most part of my 
own faithful friends, that I should hasten to con- 
fess their authority over this society. 

As my heart has always been unequal to 
speaking above a whisper any words that affected 
it deeply, this separation will come without any 
farewell sermon, or any other words that lie near 
the land of tears. As to the old friendships, 
some of them will run on under some other roof; 
none of them will be broken by any act of mine. 
In this matter of friendship, I hope it will not be 



372 

very undignified if I confess here that my mind 

recalls the song we used to sing in the days of 

romance and tenderness: 

" Here's a sigh for those who love me; 
A smile for those who hate." 

But, thinking of the sacred duties of a minister 

of Christ, a holier hymn comes to memory: 

" While place we seek or place we shun, 
The soul finds happiness in none; 
But with our God to guide the way, 
'Tis equal joy to go or stay." 

Though I am unable to rise to the sublime 

height of such words, their spirit will cheer me, 

and will soften the good-by of 

Your devoted friend, 

David Swustg. 

Oct. 31, 1875. 



Zbe IReaeons for a Central Cburcb* 

It is not my purpose to-day to preach a dis- 
course, but to state some of the reasons which led 
me to begin a public service in this place, and to 
commence it with great pleasure and with great 
hope. In the opening up of all new enterprises, 
of either a secular or religious nature, it is custom- 
ary for some one to utter inaugural words, that 
the enterprise may lie before all in its full scope 
of business, or pleasure, or duty. It seems quite 
necessary that now, when we are about to enter 
upon a series of services in such new surround- 
ings, some words should be spoken by way of 
introduction, words of explanation, and of con- 
gratulation, too. Many of you attended the 
religious services held for a time two years ago in 
this very house. Many of you left the room then 
with regrets, and to-day you come back with joy. 
The reasons for such a return need reviewing. 

That there may be some method to my re- 
marks to-day, I shall speak of certain arguments 
in favor of such a central church as we here found 
to-day, and shall classify the arguments as mate- 
rial and spiritual. 

373 



374 

The material argument is quite large. In an 
age when all other branches of life study con- 
venience and comfort, religion must imitate the 
other paths of action and being, and hence will 
not dare be difficult and inconvenient in her style, 
when the wicked world, in its method, is studious 
of public comfort. It is all vain to say that our 
fathers, in other times and countries, walked five 
miles to church, in summer's heat or winter's 
storm. So they walked also in journeying over 
the world. All things were equally full of toil 
and vexation. The hotels, where they passed the 
night, were only barns ; the beds on which they 
slept were hard as the road on which they had 
walked, and the food on the table was as full of 
toil and vexation as were the dusty journey and 
the miserable tavern. Men walked five miles to 
church, because they knew of no such thing as 
convenience or comfort. Men exhausted in that 
day, upon roads and hills and against sun and 
storm, strength of body and mind which should 
have been turned along more useful paths. 

When the gate was opened to let in the new 
idea of convenience and comfort, it had to be 
opened toward religion as well; for when man 



375 

has learned that he need not be miserable as to 
his table, as to his hotel, as to his bed, and as to 
his home, he will no longer be miserable as to his 
worship. When a bad idea has become exposed, 
it is routed everywhere. When Champollion found 
the clue to the Egyptian stones, he soon read every- 
thing in rapid succession. Thus, when man dis- 
covered that he need not be miserable in some 
one thing, he at once sprang to the conclusion 
that he need not make any part of life more 
burdensome than fate itself should demand. 

There is a tendency in the world to utilize its 
forces. The modern age will surpass all former 
times in the quantity of labor it will, in a given 
time, bring to bear upon a useful task; but it 
will not waste time and power. It will not walk 
all day to church and home again, if it can go 
to church in a few minutes, and in comfort as it 
goes. It reserves its force for needful ends. 
Xow, when all the places of worship that stood 
near the center of this great city were torn down 
and removed, the destroyers of these temples took 
worship away from the place where all the car- 
riage -ways meet, and again asked a large popu- 
lation to do as our Scottish and Puritan fathers 



376 

had done — face the storm and exhaust the day 
for the kirk. And this central population has 
declined the invitation. The meeting-house must 
come to them. It must be located where paths 
converge — where the public carriages meet. There 
must be some sanctuary near each multitude. 

A second material argument may be found in 
the peculiar shape of our city. Its business is 
not spread out for miles along some one street. It 
is massed into one solid square mile; and hence, in 
that square mile, there are thousands of business 
young men, who are quite far removed from the 
family churches, and who would be quite near to 
some central church or churches. On account of 
this peculiar massing of business, the magnificent 
hotels of this city are located in a most unusual 
manner. Instead of reaching along for Hve miles 
in a straight line, they are in a circle, about a 
dozen strong, and all within three or four squares 
of this theater. Owing to recent destruction of 
dwelling-houses, and to the marvelous beauty and 
comfort and quiet of these hotels, they are the 
homes of hundreds, almost thousands, of persons 
who once lived along the avenues, and who once 
attended the old churches of the former city. 



( » 



These statements will give you an outline of 
the material argument that not only justifies this 
opening of a new central church, but which 
entreats us all to enter upon this work with zeal 
and without delay or misgiving. To have a 
church to which so many can come so easily, not 
only from the central portion of the place, but 
from the three divisions of the city, is an idea 
that should long ago have touched your hearts 
and have swept your judgment. It is impossible 
to postpone this enterprise. 

Let us now come to the moral aspects of the 
case. Here our chief task will be to meet objec- 
tions; for, in the brief statements already made, I 
have absolutely given positive reason enough for 
the existence of this new society. 

First, this need not be called an " experi- 
ment. 7 ' It is a service to which most of us come 
back after a few years' absence. In this very 
room we sang our hymns and sent up our prayers 
and examined into the high truths of life for 
almost two years, and those two years confirmed 
all I have said about a church accessible to the 
public. So great a success were those two years, 
that the best men of the Fourth Church debated 



378 

with many of you as to the propriety of holding 
a central service on the Sunday mornings, debated 
about some method by which this service here 
could be continued. They themselves went off 
to their little church, an inaccessible church, with 
misgivings as to duty, and for months debated 
with you and with themselves as to the duty of 
the future. 

Thus we return here, cheered by two years of 
experience, an experience Avhich even a Xorth 
Side interest could not readily conceal or erase. 
The same gentlemen who stand as responsible 
friends of this movement stood for it two years ago, 
thus showing that there is nothing of mere impulse 
or novelty in their conduct, but that their action 
is based upon the experience of two years, and 
the reflection of two years more. This would 
seem sufficient answer to any who may feel that 
here we are to make an "experiment." It is not 
so. Here we resume, to-day, a reasonable, most 
wise union of hearts, that was interrupted by an 
accident, a beautiful and beloved little accident 
called the Fourth Church. And now that Pro- 
fessor Patton has removed that accident by his 
twenty -eight tears shed before the synod, I am 



379 

free, not to embark upon an untried sea, but to 
return " home a^ain from a foreign shore."" We 
know all about this channel and this ship. You 
heard these hymns before sung in such chorus; 
you have seen these faces, all happy here, in other 
days. This is the sober second thought of a 
thousand persons. 

You will please remember, too, that these 
other two years of worship in this house ended 
while your minister was still in full communion 
with the Presbyterian Church. No trial for 
heresy had ever shown any signs of coming. 
Hence, into these meetings there entered no sen- 
sational element, and they drew their life from 
no party heat. Hence the return of us all to 
this place has not in it the least element of a 
rebuke to Professor Patton, nor of a vindication 
of me. This service began before any war 
between that brother and me began, and I believe 
a central church will go forward, near where we 
are now, after Professor Patton and I shall have 
passed away from life and memory. To me, and 
to all with whom I have conversed, this move- 
ment seems to have sprung only from a public 
need, and contains in it almost no element of the 



380 

experimental and sensational. A city of half a 
million people needs this central society. 

Let me now allude to another objection : " Yon 
will have no church social life, no prayer-meet- 
ings, no church socials, no sewing societies, no 
fellowship with each other." First, let ns deny 
this gentle charge. Out of this certainly must 
come, and within a year or two let us hope, a 
regular church, Independent or Congregational, 
with its own hall for worship, and with its rooms 
for all kinds of church life. There are no reasons 
whatever against the formation and success of a 
church where all these highways meet. It can 
easily come, and will soon come. We deny the 
charge. 

But let us make a second answer to the objec- 
tion. It is these words: The value of a congrega- 
tion depends upon the number and the righteous- 
ness of the people that attend its Sunday morn- 
ing service. When, out of a thousand or two 
thousand people in a congregation, some sev- 
enty or a hundred gather at a "church social," 
you must not point me to that scene and call it 
" church life." Our opinion as to the value of 
the piety and intelligence of the vast congrega- 



381 

tion is such, that, in estimating the moral worth 
of a church, we should rather look to them of a 
Sunday in their pews, than to this little playing, 
feasting group, laughing the happy hours away. 
The people who assemble Sunday morning 
determine the value of the sanctuary. If they 
are good, righteous citizens, then that two thou- 
sand are a noble church, aside from " church 
socials. 11 And when, out of one thousand persons, 
twenty ladies meet to sew for the orphans, you 
must not point us to that scene and call it " church 
life." Our thought will still run after the one 
thousand persons not there, and with the feeling 
that in that one thousand lies the work of the 
society. The service that blesses the most is the 
chief service. 

And not much should be said about the fellow- 
ship and friendship that springs up in the regular 
house of God. We know all about this. We 
know that the congregation upon the avenues 
meet only for the worship of God, and do not 
stand heart to heart and hand in hand, away from 
the altars. Each city is full of strangers. We live 
next door to each other and remain unknowing 
and unknown. Here, where you will all have 



382 

your regular seats, and where some of the stiffness 
of the more formal churches will be wanting, you 
will soon reach an acquaintance with your neigh- 
bor and a final knowledge of all, not to be found 
in churches, which would seem to promise more. 
Hence, while at some not remote day we may 
have what is called " church life,' 1 we must not 
overrate the market value of that "life " and feel 
that the church's glory lies in that direction. The 
grand churches of the seventeenth century, that 
transformed Christ into a friend and made God 
to be Love, had no sewing societies and no church 
festivals. They had religious men in the pulpit 
and in the pews. This is the aim that should lie 
before us all, religion at the desk and down in 
the cushioned seats. All else will be insignificant, 
if we can reach, at last, intelligence and religion. 
Thus have I alluded to the objections proposed to 
you and me. I pass now to advantage and inten- 
tions. 

In our independent and congregational rela- 
tions, we, from preacher to people, expect to enjoy 
freedom of thought. I desire and fully intend to 
preach the religion of Christ, but in a liberty of 
thought not accorded me in my former relations. 



383 

Congregationalism will afford you and me all the 
liberty we desire. With that sect there is a con- 
centration upon Christ as a sufficient Savior, and 
upon the idea of rewards and punishments, that 
leaves Christianity pure in its principles and 
power, and leaves the Christian mind free. The 
denomination that can welcome Storrs and Bud- 
dington and Alvin Bartlett and Helmer is liberal 
enough for all Christian purposes. We do not 
ask for a church broad enough to permit us to be 
atheists. In Congregationalism, if at last it should 
receive us, we shall find liberty enough. Those 
denominations in which the church property is 
held by the congregation offer sufficient liberty of 
opinion. It is where the meeting-house and the 
lot and the organ belong to a certain creed that 
thought is enslaved. There pulpit and pew con- 
tinue to repeat shibboleths because property fol- 
lows certain formulas of doctrine. Congregational 
property secures freedom of thought. While 
property represents dead ideas, men will bow in 
meekness to the ideas. As Independents or Con- 
gregationalists, there lies before us a beautiful pros- 
pect of intellectual freedom. As, when Xenophon 
and his companions after a long wandering in the 



384 

mountains of Armenia, lost, starved, Lome -sick, 
and harassed by barbarians, at last, from a moun- 
tain, beheld the sea, they wept for joy and 
shouted, " The sea! the sea! " for it was to carry 
them home; so you and I, coming out of the wil- 
derness where we were lost and starved and sore 
pressed by barbarians, may well look out toward 
the wide expanse of liberty and cry out, "The 
sea! the sea!" It will now carry us all home. 
The ocean of freedom is broad and deep and beau- 
tiful. It washes all civilized shores. All the 
balmy and fragrant breezes come from its depths. 
The light of heaven smiles on its face. 

This ocean of liberty is the true consolation 
and inspiration of all who write or speak. He 
that speaks only by rote, or only to a line marked 
down by another, can only be a slave. His heart 
can never be the home of any love or earnestness. 
I do not speak of this vista of liberty on my own 
account alone. Not only must a speaker be free, 
but the audience also loves to feel that they are 
free minds, and are sitting in a sanctuary where 
the flag of liberty waves over them. The rigid 
details of the more iron-like creeds do not oppress 
the clergy only, but the church membership also.- 



385 

For the membership of the modern church has 
risen in intelligence and in the power of its logical 
faculty, and, as deeply as the clergy, it feels 
oppressed by the dogmas to which it once sub- 
scribed, and from which it knows not just how to 
escape. Much of the time of the clergy and of 
the higher order of laymen is now spent in declar- 
ing how they do not believe in denouncing it; thus 
showing with what joy they would hail spiritual 
freedom, were it placed within their grasp. In 
that theological war which was waged in this city 
two years ago, the liberal clergymen did not sur- 
pass the laity in the quantity of indignation 
aroused by such an inquisition held over words 
and sentences. Clergymen, from their theological 
studies, often endure, or forgive, or even enjoy, 
a certain amount of theological skirmishing and 
conflict. They look sometimes upon such trials 
as matters of course. But the laymen, trained to 
the useful in religion, and thinking more of Christ 
than they do of theologians, often feel very deeply 
the private and public wrong done by such 
arraignments for heresy. Their cheeks burn with 
shame that ministers should degrade their calling, 
and that, in a skeptical age, Christianity should be 
so exposed to new criticism and new contempt. 



386 

Not alone, then, am I in the power to appre- 
ciate a church where the discord of a " trial " 
can not come, but you all equally rejoice that here 
freedom of opinion pours around you its health - 
giving and joy-bringing atmosphere. We all 
desire to escape a repetition of certain foolish 
processes brought by hasty men. 

Our age, in its Christian department, is attempt- 
ing to find broader grounds in doctrine, upon 
which a larger multitude may stand in a sweeter 
peace. That there are a hundred sects, and that 
these war with each other must result from some 
defect in the mind or in the sentiments of the 
heart. Such discord can not but come from either 
ignorance or selfishness. There must be some 
one religion in which men might meet; for God 
is one, and heaven is one, and virtue is one, and 
vice is one. Our age is attempting to find the 
ideas that separate men and the other ideas that 
bring them together. It wishes to destroy the 
-former, and crown the latter. It is seeking a 
higher unity of thought, that there may be a 
deeper unity of sentiment and love. The Calvin - 
ist and the Arminian, the Baptist and the Epis- 
copalian, and even the Catholics under the lead 



387 

of Hyacinthe and Dollinger, are seeking this 
wider ground of faith and love. As rapidly as 
this noble truth is found, the ideas that have 
separated hearts and have torn the church to 
pieces will be cast out and despised, and toward 
the better central truth the public will turn with 
a new affection. 

In assembling here to-day, we come only in the 
spirit of the Christian age, seeking the higher 
truth that will bind more nearer together and 
bring more of peace and goodness to society. We 
all come, not to contradict and complain, but 
to affirm all the precious truths of the Gospel, 
and to love them the more because of our perfect 
freedom. Not as an enemy do we appear on the 
horizon, but as the fast and firm friends of all the 
churches of whatever name. I know the spirit 
of this audience. Ten years have mingled us 
much together, in public and private, and I feel 
free to say that I know your hearts; and, knowing 
them, confess with joy that our combined desire 
is to hold, not an unhappy, negative religion, but 
one full of positive devotion to Jesus Christ, and 
to all the precious interests of humanity. 



388 

We come, not as iconoclasts, but as lovers of man. 
We do not desire to be a rude force, like lightning 
or a storm, but to be a gentler influence, like sun- 
shine and dew, under which the gentlest plant 
may grow and reach its own peculiar blossoming. 
If we shall wish to deny certain doctrines, once 
believed, it will be that Christ may not be injured 
by the inventions of men. If we shall ignore 
or slight other ideas, it will be that they may 
not hide from us that Way, Truth and Life, in 
whose presence is noonday, in whose absence is 
night. Setting forth each day from Christ, as the 
radiating point of our system, we desire to apply 
his life to human life, his pardon to human sin, 
his hope to human hearts. Believing that Chris- 
tianity underlies, not only a heaven beyond the 
grave, but all good homes and cities and empires 
here, we all wish from Sunday to Sunday to seek 
out these adaptations with our intellect, that 
we may obey them with our soul. 

And, besides the words of Christianity, there 
remains its spirit, something above delineation 
in language. Those who assemble here desire, not 
only to deal in the morals and theology of 
Christ, but to live in the midst of that divine 



389 

charity that enveloped our Lord in all hours. 
Toward even Pilate and all the adverse throng, 
Christ was full of tenderness. From Christ 
comes the lesson that ill-will, anger, self-worship, 
are only painful blemishes upon the soul, and 
that, until man can deal in perfect kindness with 
those who differ with him in thought, he is yet 
far down in the depths of barbarism. One of 
our public men, who had lived a long and serene 
public life, confessed, lately, that in early manhood 
he had felt that he could not afford to get angry 
at a fellow, for anger was such a disgrace to 
the soul. 

There is a spirit of Jesus Christ more Godlike 
than even His words; a spirit which all may feel, 
but which none can express, — just as one may feel 
in his bosom the beauty of a day in June, but can 
never embody the heart-beat in language. But 
such a spirit there is. It will sit down and talk 
with the skeptical scientist as Jesus talked 
with the woman" at the well or with the ruler 
at nightfall. The wider the difference of 
opinion, the more eager this spirit of Christ to 
show us benevolence. It leaves the ninety and 
nine in the fold of truth, and goes forth with 



390 

a smile and a benediction toward the one infidel 
or atheist or skeptic who may seem to be wander- 
ing in the mazes of entangled thought. To this 
doctrine and spirit of Christ, we, the Central 
Church, would subscribe anew, this day. We: 
would renew the vows of former years. We ask 
all the great circle of churches around to extend 
us their good will. We omit no one, not even 
the Catholics. We shall love to offer them 
all the help of our right hand and our heart' & 
best wishes and best love. 



Zbc But? of tbe pulpit in tbe Ibour of 
Social Tflnreet. 

2>avifc Swing's Hast Sermon. 

While men slept the enemy sowed tares among the wheat. — 
Matt. xiii. 25. 

It would be a happiness to all of us, could we 
meet to-day having in our hands branches from 
the woods or shells from the shore where we may 
have recently attempted to hnd pleasure and rest; 
but the events of the last few months, and the 
gloom of the future, have stolen from prairie and 
seacoast their long-found charm. 

The trees and the waters have for many weeks 
past sighed over the infirmities of our country. 

To find the images of greatness, we have been 
compelled to look into the past. When President 
Cleveland intervened, and, perhaps, saved this 
city from being plundered and burned, some men 
feared to thank him for such a quick interven- 
tion. July must deal very gently with criminals 
who are to vote in November. 

Not since 1861, has the sky been as dark as it 
is to-day. We have unconsciously built up within' 



392 

this generation two black passions — the one, 
the feeling that money is the only thing worth 
living for, and the other, that work mnst hate 
capital. Thns the level of all society is lowered — 
the moneyed class by its worship of gold, the 
other class by its life of hate. While wealth has 
inflamed its possessors and worshipers, there has 
lived and talked an army of angry orators, whose 
purpose has been to make the men who work in 
the vineyard hate the men who pay them at 
nightfall. In snch circumstances, the vineyard 
will soon be, first, a battle field, and then, a desert. 
It would seem that all the Christian clergy, 
Catholic and Protestant, and all the ethical teach- 
ers should, this autumn, enter into a new friend- 
ship Avith these two discordant classes, and preach 
to both alike the gospel of a high humanity. 
The churches and pulpits of all grades possess a 
vast influence. They do not hold any "key to 
the situation,' 1 or any "balance of power 1 '; they 
can not open and close the gates of the earthly 
heaven and hell for America ; but they possess an 
enormous moral force — a power that should no 
longer be exhausted upon little theological issues 
and practices. All the intellectual and spiritual 



393 

resources of the pulpit should be exhausted in 
the effort to advance human character. Society 
needs speedy and large additions to both its 
righteousness and its common sense. 

What saved the country from a great calamity 
last July, was the fact that the school-house, the 
church, and the press, of the last fifty years had 
quietly created an intelligence large enough to 
stand between the people and their ruin. When 
the new kind of autocrat ordered all the railway 
wheels between the two oceans to stop, and had 
sat down to enjoy the silence of locomotives 
and iron rails, there were so many noble and 
educated men in the railway service that the 
voice of the autocrat was the only noise that died 
out. It was not President Cleveland alone that 
came between us and a great calamity. He was 
aided by the high common sense of a large 
majority of the railway employes. The railway 
union of working men was not formed for a 
career of mingled cruelty and nonsense, but that 
men might help each other in honorable ways 
and in hours of great wrong and need. The 
union was not formed in order that railway men 
might become beggars, at a time when their work 



394 

was bringing almost a barrel of flour a day for 
each family. With wages at two dollars a day 
and wheat at half a dollar a bushel, the strike 
and trouble of July were not only unreasonable 
but malicious. 

Nearly all clergymen stand close to the people. 
They are reared in the philosophy that gives 
bread to the hungry. The gospel of Christ is 
one of infinite sympathy. Men who from choice 
enter the ministry of the Judean religion are 
never so happy as when they see the laborer sit 
down under a good roof to a table spread with 
abundant food. In the life of the average cler- 
gyman, a large part of his thought and public 
utterance, and actual labor and sympathy, is 
given to what is called the common people. The 
upper classes need little. There is nothing in 
the millionaire that appeals to the heart. The 
rich are so self- adequate that they may draw 
admiration and esteem, but not sympathy. The 
heart of the pulpit is freely given to the middle 
and lower classes. In all time, the common peo- 
ple have attracted to themselves the most of both 
philosophy and poetry, but the attention and the 
affection, they won in the former times seem weak,. 



395 

compared with the love that has been flung to 
them in this passing century. Under the influ- 
ence of this sympathetic philosophy, wages have 
been advanced, humane laws have been passed, 
the facts of health and disease have been studied, 
and new action has come with new light; and 
when into such an age of both inquiry and 
action there is projected such a scene as that of 
last July, the spectacle does not belong to reason 
or humanity, but only to despotic ignorance and 
ill will. 

Labor may, and even must, organize, but the 
laborers must organize as just and law-abiding 
men, country-loving men, and not as bandits. 
The depressing memory of last July is not to be 
found in the fact that labor was organized, or 
wholly in the fact that it " struck." The strike 
was, indeed, perfectly destitute of common sense, 
but the chief disgrace of the hour lay in the will- 
ingness of free men to obey a central desj:>ot and 
join in such acts of wrong and violence as would 
have disgraced savages. Benevolence is humili- 
ated that it must feed and clothe nien who will 
break the skull or kick to insensibility the brother 
who wishes to earn bread for his hungry family. 



396 

It was discovered last July that some of the 
labor unions employ fighting men to go to and 
fro to hunt up and knock down those who do 
not join in the folly — those who are satisfied with 
their wages or who must work. Not every work- 
man is a trained pugilist. So men are hired to 
spend the day or the week in pounding men who 
are noble and industrious. The cry " I am an 
American " does not avail as much in Chicago as 
the words " I am a Roman " availed Paul in Jeru- 
salem. When Paul said he was a Roman, the 
mob fell back; but when Mr. Cleveland said, 
" These pounded men are Americans," it was 
thought by some that he was not the proper per- 
son to make the remark. And yet, our pulpits 
have, for fifty years, been trying to make Chris- 
tians, and our schools and printing presses have 
been trying to endow these Christians with sense. 

Quite a number of clergymen have banded 
together to preach the gospel of personal right- 
eousness; that Christianity is Christ in human 
life, Christ in society, Christ in money, and Christ 
in work. We preachers must all come to that 
definition of the church. This height of thought 
will make all dizzy for a time; but the quality of 



397 

our old Christianity will not meet the demands of 
a republic. A despotism may be sustained by 
Catholics or Protestants, but a republic must be 
sustained by men. 

Labor guilds are as old as work and capital; 
but one kind of labor guild is new, and let us 
all pray that it shall not live to become old. 
In the darkness of the fourteenth century, the 
young workingman looked happily forward to 
the day when he could be admitted into the guild 
of his craft. His mother and sisters looked after 
his habits, that his character might be above 
reproach. The approach to the initiation day 
was much like a youth's approach to his iirst com- 
munion. New clothes, a feast, new conduct, new 
inspiration, new hopes came with the hour that 
placed this new name upon the noble roll. But 
this was in the dark ages. In the close of the 
nineteenth century, when the heavens and earth 
are ablaze with the light of Christ, when love for 
man is written everywhere in letters of gold, 
when congresses of religion meet to teach us that 
all men are brethren, then the men who join a 
guild shake a bludgeon at their brother and are 
advised by a reckless king to buy a gun. Some 



398 

men call this phenomenon a commercial disturb- 
ance. It is nothing of the kind. In the South 
Sea Islands it is barbarism; among the carnivo- 
rous animals it is called ferocity; in our civilized 
land it is infamy. 

It seems evident that Christianity asks laborers 
to be organized into societies. If a church may 
be organized that Christians may help each other 
and confer with each other about all things that 
pertain to the church, why may not carpenters 
and railway nieD form a union that many minds 
and many hearts may find what is best for the 
toilers in their field? The word u Church" means 
a gathering of people, but if the exigencies of 
religion may demand an assembly, so may the 
exigencies of a trade. But none of these assem- 
blages can sustain any relations whatever to 
violence or any kind of interference with the 
liberty or rights of man. For a vast group of 
railway men to sign away their personal liberty 
and permit some one man to order them around 
as though slaves, is a spectacle pitiful to look 
uj3on ; but to band together for interference with 
the rights of man is, not a mental weakness, but 
a crime. 



399 

It is a great task for a labor guild to study 
aud fully learn what are the facts and the needs 
of itself. Before men quit their employers, they 
should all know the reason of the move. After 
men have been idle for a winter and have come 
to regular work and regular pay, if they hasten 
fco strike, their reason ought to be so large that 
the whole world can see it. But we do things 
differently in enlightened America. Our men 
hasten to throw down tools and their wages, and, 
at last, when starving, they ask some committee 
to make a microscopical search for the reason of 
the distress. And, before this reason is known, 
eminent men express themselves as in full sym- 
pathy with it. All the railway wheels in America 
were ordered to stop out of sympathy with a 
reason which a committee was looking for with a 
microscope. The railways were giving work to 
four millions of people. This work was all 
"called off" by a man with some telegraphic 
blanks, and the poor families supported by the 
Northwestern lost two hundred thousand dollars, 
the workmen of the Illinois Central one hundred 
and sixty-four thousand dollars, of the Milwaukee 
and St. Paul one hundred and seventy- five thou- 



400 

sand dollars, and thus on to the millions — all 
which loss was ordered from sympathy with men 
who were getting six hundred dollars a year. 

Labor unions will waste their work by the 
millions of dollars' worth, and will soil their 
name and ruin the sympathy of literature, art and 
religion, as long as they trust their cause to hot- 
headed, ignorant, illogical men. Labor should 
have for its chieftains our Franklins or our John 
Stuart Mills. These should be its guide. If our 
land possesses no such minds, then are we on the 
eve of untold misfortune. When labor shall have 
Franklins for its walking delegates, it will enter 
upon a new career. Capital will confer with it, 
congresses of workingmen will meet, and men 
will find the wages of each toiler and of each new 
period, but nothing can be done by a foolish des- 
pot with a club. Yes, something can be done — 
the Republic can be hopelessly ruined through a 
ruined manhood. 

The wages and whole welfare of the laboring 
man have been much advanced in twenty -five 
years, but the gun and club have taken no part 
in this progress. Conference, thought, reason, 
benevolence, have accomplished the blessed task, 



401 

and they will do much more when they are invited 
to help our race. Moral power makes laws. It 
shames the guilty. It dissolves adamant. It 
founded the Christian Church. It has civilized 
whole races; it has emancipated the mind; it has 
freed slaves. 

It may easily be remembered that a London 
man a few years ago unveiled the wrongs inflicted 
upon poor young girls. This injustice did not 
need to be examined by a microscope. The heart 
of London became aflame with indignation. The 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Archbishop 
of Westminster, Cardinal Manning, the Bishop 
of London, Sir William Harcourt, and Sir Robert 
Cross, flung their minds and hearts into the cause, 
and the parliament passed a new law for a longer 
and diviner protection of girls. 

To many labor unions all talk of moral power 
carries the weight of only nonsense. The moral 
influence theory is indeed defective, but it is the 
only one within human reach. If a dozen men 
should resolve that they have rights to seats in a 
street car, their theory seems good ; but, on getting 
into one of these vehicles, if they find the seats all 
taken, unless they can club those persons out 



402 

of those seats, the theory of those dozen unionists 
is very defective. When a man resolves that he 
ought to sit down and then stands up, his resolu- 
tion is defective. But what makes it defective ? 
The rights of the man who is sitting down. So 
when a set of men resolve that they will work 
only for four dollars a day, they hold an imper- 
fect platform, because of the rights of the men 
who will work for three dollars. Should a cler- 
gyman resign his pu^it because his people will 
not pay him six thousand dollars a year, his 
theory is incomplete indeed, unless he can kill 
the preachers who will come for five thousand 
dollars. But he must go to and fro with his 
imperfect theory. It is spoiled by the rights of 
other preachers. Thus, against all labor unions 
not strictly moral, the laws of the human race 
rise up. The rights of mankind oppose them. 
All society is founded upon the rights of man — 
not of the man who works for three dollars a day, 
but of the man also who works for one dollar or 
for any sum whatever. Any force in a labor 
union means anarchy. A guild, without vio- 
lence, may be imperfect, but, with violence, it is 
infamous. 



403 

Where would our city and perhaps our nation 
have been in this September, had not the laborers 
in the town of Pullman and in the whole land 
been for the most part law-abidiug ? The churches 
may confess the rashness of the strike, but we 
must forgive the mistakes of those who respected 
the rights of mankind and the laws of the land. 
Many toilers were so patient and law-abiding as 
to give promise of being worthy citizens of a 
great country. What all those workmen need 
is a leadership worthy of their cause or their 
flag. 

The flag of labor is a perfectly glorious one — 
too grand to be carried by a fanatic or a simple- 
ton or a criminal. Capital is nothing until labor 
takes hold of it. A bag will hold money, but a 
bag can not transform that money into an iron 
road, a bridge, a train of cars, an engine. An 
armful of bonds did not fling the bridge over the 
arm of the sea at Edinburgh ; the bonds of England 
did not join the Mediterranean to the Red Sea; 
gold did not erect St. Peter's at Rome ; nor did it 
lift up any of the sublime or beautiful things in 
any art. Money came along and attempted to 
buy the canvases of Angelo, but it did not paint 



404 

them. The millions of people who came here last 
summer did not come to see the millions of money, 
but to see what labor had done with money, and 
they saw a great spectacle. What domes ! What 
arches ! What " Courts of Honor ! " What canals ! 
What statues! What machines! What pictures! 
What jewels! What thought! What taste! What 
love! And yet the whole scene was the match- 
less emblazonry of labor. As God manifests him- 
self in the external objects of earth and in the 
millions of stars, thus man speaks by his works, 
and in our world labor sits enthroned. Capital 
is a storehouse of seeds ; labor is their field, their 
soil, their rain, and their summer-time. Over a 
potency so vast and godlike, only Wisdom herself 
should preside. If our age has any great men — 
men whose hearts are warm and pure, and whose 
minds are large as the world, — it should ask them 
to preside over the tasks and wages of the laborer. 
Anarchy, crime, and folly should be asked to 
stand back. Those three demons may be called 
to the front when our laborers are seeking for 
poverty and disgrace. 

You have all heard of the hostility of capital 
to labor. But there is no special truth in the 



405 

phrase. Labor is just as hostile to labor. The 
whole truth is this: Man is not anxious to spend 
his money. There is a saying that " the fool and 
his money are soon parted," but we have not 
reached the maxim that labor loves to make pres- 
ents to labor. Did you ever know a blacksmith 
who was happy to pay large bills to the plumber \ 
Are the carpenters anxious to have their tailors 
advance the price of a suit of clothes ? Are the 
" walking delegates " for the plasterers anxious 
to pay the farmer a dollar for wheat? If reports 
be true, there are laboring men in the West who 
are so hostile to the labor of their brothers that 
they are going to buy most all needful things in 
the shops of England. 

Thus labor is as great an enemy of labor as it 
is of capital. The hostility between labor and 
money is a mischievous fiction, gotten up by 
dreamers and professional grumblers, who wish to 
ride into office or fame by parading a love for the 
multitude. This false love ought soon to end its 
destructive career. Last June and July it cost 
the workingmen many millions of dollars. Had 
some walking delegates of Christianity told these 
men that labor and capital are eternal friends — 



406 

that labor is the language of money, the body it 
assumes, the life it lives, — our summer would have 
been full of industry and honor. How could 
Krupp hate the men who are doing his will 
in massive iron ? How could Field hate the men 
who were laying his cable in the ocean? The 
church must help stamp all our industrial false- 
hoods into the dust, and must wave over all men 
the flag of brotherhood. 

So rapidly has friendship grown between 
capital and labor, that a law is now before the 
British parliament looking to a compensation to 
each laborer or his family for injuries the work- 
ingman may have received in the execution of his 
task. AVhen passed, this law will each year give 
ten millions of dollars to the working class of the 
three islands. This law is not coming from the 
"club" or "gun, 11 but from the Christianity of 
England. 

This new humane philosophy has counted all 
the toilers who have been injured in their toil. 
It saw fifty -seven men killed while building the 
Forth bridge, and 130 die among the wheels and 
machines used in digging the Manchester canal. 
This new kindness has studied longer and found 



407 

that of each ten thousand men employed on the 
railways, fourteen are killed in a year and eighty 
badly crippled. In the long past there was no love 
that counted these dead or injured men. A dead 
laborer was as a dead horse or a dead dog. The 
riots and destruction and barbarity of last 
July set back all this new friendship, and made 
brotherly love despair of the present and future. 
The evil one hath done this. Endless abuse, 
endless complaint, endless violence, openly taught 
anarchy, have succeeded in making work the 
enemy of money. You can recall the Bible 
story of the person who came at night and sowed 
tares among the springing wheat. 

The fact that the United States army had to 
hasten hither to save life and property can not 
all be charged upon the immigrants in our land. 
We have of late years been producing a group of 
Americans who care nothing for right or wrong, 
and who have become the masters of all the 
forms of abuse and discontent. It is evident that 
the influx of anarchists ought to cease, but we 
must not forget the crop our nation is growing 
out of its own soil. All the cities seem uniting 
to make law ridiculous. The alien who will sell 



408 

Iris vote for a few shillings is not so low as the 
American who will prefer these votes to princi- 
ples. The immigrant may act through the absence 
of patriotism for his new land, but the American 
acts through total depravity. 

The foreigners are generally manipulated by 
political confidence men, who are home-made. 

The general theme of this morning is too large 
for the narrow limits of an essay, but it is possi- 
ble for us to feel that our great Christian organ- 
ism ought to be applied, from these dark days 
onward, to the making of the Christlike char- 
acter. The church, Catholic and Protestant, has 
lived for all other causes; let it, at last, live for 
a high intelligence and for individual righteous- 
ness. Literature and science and the public 
press will help the church. All these wide-open 
and anxious eyes must perceive clearly that our 
national and personal happiness must come from 
the study and obedience of that kind of ethics 
which became so brilliant in Palestine. Our 
Jewish friends need not call it Christian, and 
our rationalized minds need not call it divine. 
What is desirable and essential is, that its spirit 
shall sweep over us. Called by any name, it is 



409 

a perfect salvation for our country and for each 
soul. The time and money the church has given 
to a metaphysical inquiry and teaching have 
"been a total loss. In the great college courses, 
there are studies in classic language, and in high 
mathematics, that strengthen the intellect; but no 
such virtue has ever been found to flow from 
the theological studies of the church. For hun- 
dreds of years the mind has found in these 
enigmas its slow doctrine. There, thousands, 
even millions, of thinkers have found their grave. 
There, the colossal mind of even a Pascal grew 
confused and weak. There, great men have lost 
their blessed earth while they were fighting 
over the incomprehensible. God did not give 
man this globe that it might be made a desert 
or a battlefield, but that it might be made the 
great home of great men. 

As often as creeds and dogmas have detached 
the mind from humanity, literature and art and 
science have rushed in to save the precious things 
of society. But these agencies have done this 
only by carrying, in prose and verse and science, 
the laws of love, duty and justice, by delineating 
man as a brother of all men and as a subject in 



410 

the mighty kingdom of law and love. In an age 
and in a republic marked by an amazing effort to 
turn all things, all days, all life, into gold, our 
pulpits must make a new effort to reveal and create 
man the spiritual being, man temperate, man stu- 
dious, man a lover of justice, man the brother, man 
Christlike. The same science that is seeking and 
finding the sources of wealth, and that is filling 
the young mind with longings to become rich, can 
find and teach all the worth of man as a spiritual 
being, and can compel a great nation and a great 
manhood to spring up from the philosophy of 
the soul. 

To reach a result so new and so great, the 
pulpit must select new themes. It must cull 
them from the field where the mob raves, from 
the shops where men labor, from the poverty in 
which many die, from the office where wealth 
counts its millions. Even so beclouded a pagan 
as Virgil sang that when the mob is throwing 
stones and firebrands, and is receiving Aveapons 
from its fury, if wisdom will only become visible 
and speak to it, it will listen, and at last obey. 
We have the mob; it is high time for a divine 
wisdom to speak to it. 



411 

Our planet not only rolls on in the embrace 
of the laws of gravitation, of light and heat, 
vegetable and animal life, and the strange encoin- 
passment of the electric ether, but it flies onward 
amid spiritual laws far more wonderful — laws 
of labor and rest, laws of mental and moral pro- 
gress, laws of perfect justice and of universal 
love. Oh, that God, by his almighty power, 
may hold back our Nation from destruction for 
a few more perilous years, that it may learn 
where lie the paths, in which, as brothers just 
and loving, all may walk to the most of excel- 
lence and the most of happiness. 



Gbe IRefcemption of a Cit^ 

David Swing's TIlnttnisbeD Sermon. 

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction. — Psalm ciii. 4. 

The theological form of redemption is no 
longer clearly understood. The term passed 
through many centuries without having its im- 
port much questioned. All the Christian myriads 
assumed that there was a heavy account standing 
against each living soul and that Christ had come 
to redeem those who were lying in jail under this 
debt. He had paid off the old claim and stood 
forth in the light of a kind redeemer. At last 
came the Calvinists to teach that this floating 
debt was paid for only a part of the debtors. 
The Arminians taught that arrangements had 
been made by which all debtors could arrange 
to have their old account erased. In the long 
meanwhile, the import of the word "redemption" 
was a commercial meaning. 

Mr. Gladstone has recently written an essay 
against Anna Besant's memories of her early the- 
ology. It would seem that Anna Besant does 
injustice to the intellect and faith of the modern 



412 



413 

churches at large; but there are many congrega 
dons in England and our land to whose member- 
ship her delineation of a doctrine would sound 
like the purest truth, while that of Mr. Gladstone 
would come under the old terrible phrase of 
" philosophy falsely so called. " The ideas of the 
statesman are almost those of the new school of 
Presbyterians. 

The word redemption sprang up when men 
first began to fight and take prisoners on land 
and sea. To kill these prisoners was not always 
the best manner in wdiich to dispose of them. 
Perhaps rich families would pay much money or 
many camels or kids for their release. From 
such a source the word soon passed to a spiritual 
meaning, and we hear Job saying: "I know that 
my Redeemer liveth ; he will at last appear and 
buy me back from my cruel captors. " We hear 
the psalm singing of the kind God who buys us 
away from destruction. Thus, step by step, came 
the thought and sentiment that named Christ the 
Redeemer. 

As the word is older than the formal theology 
of the church, it may be thought of as one of 
the great general terms of all languages. We 



414 

are all captives. In the great war of man's life, 
some armed ignorance or vice has taken ns pris- 
oners, and we are all waiting for some redeemer 
to come. It is not only on account of heaven 
the captives are waiting. Earth enters into all 
their longings. They wish to be brought back 
and set free in these continents and years. Hav- 
ing no money of their own, they hope for help 
from their friends, and they recall the dream of 
Isaiah, when men would be redeemed without 
money or without price. The wealth of the 
world would be offered to each poor heart. In 
the galleries of Europe there is often seen a 
beautiful picture of a Magdalen, reading. She 
had been redeemed. When some unseen hand 
drew back for St. John the curtain of heaven, he 
saw in one happy field one hundred and forty- 
four thousand of the redeemed. They had once 
been prisoners, but the quality of our world had 
made them, like the captives of Zechariah, "pris- 
oners of hope." Earth has no hopeless islands 
or continents. It may be all swept over by the 
winds and melody of redemption. Christ did 
not create all this work of rescue, but, bringing a 
large part of it, he expressed the whole fact. As 



415 

one summer-time does not contain all the magical 
working of the sun, but only illustrates millions 
of past and coming years, so Christ did not bring 
all of redemption to our world, but rather did 
he teach us that all the human host has marched 
or may march through an atmosphere beautifully 
tinted with redeeming grace. It is not all the 
grace of God; much of it is the grace of man. 
It comes from God, indeed, but it comes through 
humanity. 

Our age is moved deeply by the study of 
ideals in art. Each generation is amazed at its 
own progress. In the great Field Columbian 
Museum, one can see the history of many an idea; 
the boat-idea, beginning at three logs bound 
together with a piece of bark, and passing on 
toward the ocean palace; the transportation-idea, 
beginning with a strap on a man's forehead, 
passing on, through the panniers on a goat or a 
donkey, and reaching to the modern express train ; 
the sculpture-idea, moving from some stone or 
earthen or wooden outlines onward toward the 
angelic forms that seem about to live and speak. 
There you will see the wooden eagle that marked 
the grave of some Indian. And what a creature 



416 

it is! Nothing but the infinite kindness of civil- 
ization could persuade us to call it a bird of any 
known species. And yet perhaps the Indian, 
when dying, was happy that such a wooden bird 
was to stand on his grave and keep his memory 
green. 

Into our age, so full of new and grand concep- 
tions in art, there must come the marching ideals 
of human life. Man is moving through a redemp- 
tive world. All lips should sing each day the 
song of the old harpist, "Who redeemeth thy 
life from destruction.'" What our a^e needs 
is a rapid advance of the ideals of life. A Catho- 
lic priest who has spent thirty years in the tem- 
perance cause said, last week, that the saloon is 
the greatest enemy that Rome has left in the 
world; that the criticisms we Protestants make of 
Rome's dogmas were harmless, compared with the 
ruin of mind and soul wrought by the saloon and 
its defenders. No one will deny the truth of 
the priest's complaint, and all are glad to mark 
the new effort of the Romanists to set up new 
ideas. Protestants should not, can not, hate a 
Catholic; but all good citizens must cherish little 
regard for any one who has not yet gotton beyond 
the saloon idea. 



417 

Such arc not churchmen — they are saloonmen. 
They have not been touched by the new redemp- 
tion of the new age. When they die, they ought 
to sleep under that wooden eagle of the museum, 
because the bird and the man stand equally far 
away from any known shape of terrestrial beauty. 
May great success come to the Civic Federation, 
which is attempting to redeem this city from the 
grasp of those men, in office and out of office, who, 
being Romanists, disgrace Rome's altar, or, being 
Protestants, disgrace all humanity! Nothing is 
so beautiful as the face of the Redeemer; but each 
man and woman who leads toward a higher life 
is a redeemer of our race. Christ was a fountain 
of redemption, but humanity at large composes 
the great flood. Each noble soul, each good book, 
each great picture, each piece of high music, is a 
redeemer, and when the soul, young, or mature, 
has once started toward its salvation, then, each 
field, each forest, becomes a page in its divine 
book, and each bird-song, a revival hymn, sweet as 
those of the old Methodists. 

For many centuries, the Christian estimate 
of man's life was inadecpiate. , Solemnity was 
never a full justification of the human family. 



418 

Solemnity is neither a virtue nor a vice. One 
can not live for it. Weeping can not possibly be 
a human goal. God would not create a world 
that it might weep. Nor is self-denial an explan- 
ation of rational life on this globe. We admire 
the self-denial of a poor mother who toils hard, 
and eats and sleeps little, that her children may 
the better live, but we all regret that that rjoor 
mother could not have enjoyed ten times as 
much sunshine as fell upon her heart. Christ 
was the man of sorrows, but not because self- 
denial is the reason of being. Times may be- 
come so dark and oppressive that the salvation of 
the many can come only through the sufferings of 
the few, but the universe was not made for the 
general display of dark and oppressive times. 
Self-denial is not, therefore, the ultimate ideal of 
man. Self-denial assumes the misfortunes of 
other people, but the "other people" must finally 
rise above those misfortunes, and thus end the 
empire of self-abnegation. Self-denial must fol- 
low us through infancy; but what is to be with us 
and stay with us after we have become men? 
Nothing, therefore, will explain the human 
race, except the many-sided greatness and happi- 



419 

ness of each individual. The former Christian 
times all came short of finding adequate aims of 
society. The three years of Jesus were not a 
perfect picture of human life. They were a sub- 
lime picture of man, as caught in a storm, and 
as saving ship and crew, but in the uncounted 
years of that Son of God there is no crown 
of thorns. He wept for one night in a gloomy 
garden, but in the matchless sweep of his exist- 
ence there are no tears. Thus we perceive that 
the existence of man is to be explained only by 
the greatness and completeness of his ideals. It 
is not enough for a man that he is a good judge 
of pictures, for it may be that he drinks twenty 
glasses of beer in a day, and pays the family ser- 
vant girl only two dollars a week. How strange 
it is that a Catholic will belong to both a 
church and a saloon ! The human ideas must 
grow more numerous and more adequate, that 
they may make a complete manhood and woman- 
hood. 

The redeeming process must go forward until 
we are wholly free. It was once enough for a 
man if he were a Presbyterian or a Catholic; 
but such a goal is no longer adequate. This 



420 

kind of person must now add to his name a new 
gronp of virtues. He must be intelligent, tem- 
perate, just, kind, lofty. The human beauties 
have grown more rapidly than the beauties of art 
have advanced. 

It is seen how music has run forward from the 
old monotony of the Hebrews and Greeks to the 
wonderful compositions of the Italians and Ger- 
mans. The modern soul would almost die under 
the old music. It would not be high enough, 
nor low enough, nor wide enough, nor sweet 
enough. But morals have advanced by the same 
path, and yet this city, encomjDassed and inspired 
by ideals many and great, permits itself to be 
governed by the abandoned classes. It is as 
though the orator, Daniel Webster, had asked 
some African ape to speak in his stead; it is as 
though Jenny Lind had asked some steam fog- 
horn to sing her part. When, from the splendor 
of this city, from its high people, from its intelli- 
gent and sunny homes, from its churches, from its 
immortal summer of 1893, one passes to the cen- 
tralized government, the heart cries out: Alas, 
Jenny Lind, why did you suppose that a fog-horn 
could take your place and sing for us that mighty 



421 

song, k, I Know that My Redeemer Liveth." In 
the midst of the- discord it is difficult to believe 
that a redeemer lives. 

It was hoped by many, before Mr. Stead pub- 
lished his book on Chicago, that it would contain 
some full and fair estimate of the virtues and 
vices of the new and large city. But the volume 
was not what was needed. It was full of all 
kinds of trifling and injustice. It made sport of 
men who founded institutes and universities, and 
made no important distinction between a business 
man and a swindler. The book was written 
most recklessly. But it revealed one fact, the 
great need of a treatise whose theme shall be this 
one city. It ought to be written by a calm and 
just mind — some Dryasdust, perhaps, whom no 
fact could escape. It would need no literary 
decoration. Its facts would be all the paint it 
could bear. We need a perfect picture of our 
mental and spiritual shape. In this long tempest, 
some bearing must be taken of the valuable ship. 
If the people could know all the facts in the case, 
they would fly to the ballot box as to their only 
refuge, and would make every election day a 
great day of redemption. Why should such a 



422 

city, so situated, so vast, so intelligent, go to the 
simple for its philosophy and tax gamblers for 
the spread of such midnight darkness? Money 
would come from noble people, could it only 
come for good purposes. 

The redemption of such a city is a great work. 
They who gird themselves for such a task, and 
who toil to the end, will reach more laurels than 
can be worn by one forehead. The new era calls 
them and will inspire them and the future will 
reward them. 

The ills of a city will not all vanish when it 
shall become well governed. A most perfect and 
most honest government will not bring a perfect 
salvation; for intemperance and idleness and 
extravagance will remain, and those two great 
forces called labor and capital will still be here. 
They are both one, only capital is larger than 
labor. When a man's labor is worth six hundred 
dollars a year, he is worth several thousand dol- 
lars. It would take quite a sum invested at six 
per cent, to equal such a man. Capital is con- 
densed labor — labor crowded into a package of 
bills or gold, like the air crowded into a Westing - 
house cylinder. The living laborer sets free the 



423 

condensed labor and makes it assume the form of 
some external object. Both are one, only capital 
is the larger. They will draw nearer to each 
other as the world advances in intellect and good- 
ness. 

In this widening of human ideals a large part 
of the community has outgrown the law of 
demand and supply. The Rossis and Ricardos, 
who stated that law so clearly a hundred years 
ago, were not thinking of the welfare of the 
workingman, but only the causes of a price. The 
study and the law were cold blooded. A work- 
ingman received fifty cents a day or less, because 
the need was not great and the workingmen were 
numerous. In our age there is a vast multitude 
of employers who pay something to a man 
because he is a human being. An element 
undreamed of by the last century enters into the 
wages of to-day. Mr. Childs did not regard the 
law of demand and supply. His heart made 
some new laws, and he paid as much to the 
human being as he did to the trade of the man. 
He could have secured labor at a low market 
price, but he hated the calculations of the last 
century, and paid men what pleased his own 



424 

benevolence. Few of yon make any effort to 
secure help at the lowest rates. The human 
being — man, woman or boy — steps in and draws 
a few additional pennies. The sweat shops are 
places where love has not yet come. There, the 
law of demand and supply works in all its old- 
time barbarity. 

In our largest mercantile house there are clerks 
who receive twenty thousand dollars a year. In 
one of our music houses we can find the same 
kind of fact. Great salaries are folio win g labor's 
nag, but it is vain to say that those salaries come 
from demand and supply, for we know that these 
fortunate clerks could be procured at a much 
lower rate. Wages are being modified by the 
sentiment of human brotherhood. It must not be 
raised as an objection that this sentiment is not 
universal. Perhaps the man who raises the objec- 
tion has not yet become perfectly redeemed him- 
self. We should all be conscious of the slowness 
with which perfection spreads over the mortal 
heart. 

When the town of Pullman was projected, two 
or more members of its small but rich syndicate 
opposed the construction of such a beautiful vil- 



425 

lage. They said, "beauty of streets, of houses, 
library, theatre, market-place, church, lakes, and 
fountains will yield no interest on the investment. 
Plain, cheap huts will do as well." But the higher 
ideal carried, and three million dollars were thus 
flung away. Some of the founders remembered 
the sweat shops of the world, and some remem- 
bered also the black slaves who had received 
from capital neither a home nor wages. There 
may be defects in the Pallman idea, but, viewed 
from a hundred gambling dens and five thousand 
saloons, it looks well. Seen from our city hall, it 
looks like a group of palm trees waving over a 
spring in the desert. While traveling through 
hell, Dante was cheered when, looking through 
pitchy clouds, he saw a star. 

We are not to assume that the town of Pull- 
man has reached its greatest excellence. It is 
injured by the unrest of the Nation. Perhaps many 
of our greatest employers will, like Mr. Brassey, 
of England, decline to accept of us profits beyond 
five per cent. We must all hope much from the 
gradual progress of brotherly love. * 

1bere tbe professor's last manuscript enoeo. 



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